


Mama (Moths in the Candle Light)

by Insanitywithaprettyface



Category: Hawkeye - Fandom, Mama- 2013, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers Family, Caw Caw Motherfucker, Child Abandonment, Clint Needs a Hug, Dark, Deaf Clint Barton, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, F/F, F/M, Feral Behavior, Feral Children, Haunting, Horror, Hulk is sort of a Mama bear, Hurt Clint, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Clint, Insecure Clint Barton, M/M, Mental Disorders, Multi, Murder, Nightmare, Poor Clint, Protective Avengers, Protective Bruce, Protective Hulk, Protective Natasha, Protective Phil Coulson, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Thor, Protective Tony Stark, Scary, Self Harm, Shutter is another creepy ass movie, Shutter referances will be in here to, Sleep Deprivation, Yeah this is a horror movie cross over, You should go watch Mama, dark things to come, ghost - Freeform, spoilers for Mama the horror movie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Insanitywithaprettyface/pseuds/Insanitywithaprettyface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint's been having nightmares – nightmares about someone called Mama.<br/>The nightmares are vivid-sometimes he can’t tell if he’s awake or not and that scares him more than anything. He’s supposed to be able to focus in on anything- he’s the eyes of the Avengers not being able to see and decipher reality from fiction could destroy what he believes to be his already unstable position on the Avengers. He wishes that he could just blame the nightmares on Loki but the trickster hasn’t been the focus of any of his nightmares since the 2 weeks after the whole invasion incident.<br/>He’s losing sleep at night and sinking back into his old habits of ignoring the problem, drinking himself silly and taking refuge in the beds and embraces of one night stands. He has no idea if he’s losing it or not and he knows better than to say something to the other Avengers because that would only lead to him getting kicked off the team and losing his new home and new family. As the reawakened presence slowly starts to reinsert itself into Clint's life the Avengers start to realized that whatever this thing is that it might end up taking away their archer and they won't let that happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Twisted Memory

**Author's Note:**

> “A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again.”  
> -Mama, 2013

**“Daddy, look! There's a woman outside the window. And she's not touching the floor.”**

**-Mama, 2013**

 

 

 

“ _Local man ….is wanted in the shooting of his-_ ”

 

Harold turned the static filled radio station off as he sped up, making the old pickup skid dangerously over the icy back road. His hands gripped the steering wheel harder; his eyes were locked on the road ahead- unmoving under his furrowed brow.  He seemed to be oblivious of the two trembling little boys sitting on the far side of the old pickup’s bench seat. They were the farthest things from his mind at the moment.

 

He had to focus on getting far enough away.

 

“Daddy, you’re going too fast,” the older of the two little boys whispered as he clutched his little brother closer.

 

Harold didn’t take notice, it was like he couldn’t hear the frightened voice of his oldest son speaking out to him. Harold’s mind was barely there anymore- too twisted with rage, horror, and guilt to really stay focused on the two boys.

 

So much had transpired today.

 

 He’d done so many horrible things- so many horrible things. He’d shot her- taken his shotgun and stuck it right to her head while she slept. He hadn’t expected to see her there with his boss- hadn’t expected to see her moving on so quickly and with the man who had taken away his job, who’d caused them to split up in the first place. That bastard had been in his bed, sleeping in his house, with his wife, while his sons were sleeping down the hall.

 

He’d deserved it just like that lying bitch- she’d cheated on him and tried to take away his boys. No one would now; his sons would never be taken from him ever again. He’d see to that just like he’d seen to ending that lying bitch’s cheating ways along with that bastard she’d been screwing.

 

“Daddy you’re going too fast!”

 

“Shut up!”

 

Harold felt the tires lose friction the moment he took his eyes off the road, he could hear the boys screaming as the truck skidded and spun on the frozen asphalt. He fought to get control cursing loudly as he yanked at the wheel trying his damnedest to get the truck back under his control.

 

This wasn’t supposed to be how it ended, not like this. He had a plan and it didn’t involve a car crash.

 

He felt the impact of the front of his old pickup bouncing over a snow bank and colliding with a tree. His head cracked against the steering wheel and right before he blacked out he heard his youngest scream out in pain.

 

He couldn’t be sure how long he was dead to the world before he was woken up by the screams of his youngest son and the crying on his oldest, but it couldn’t have been too long because it was still light out. Harold looked over to find his oldest clutching his youngest and rocking the baby in his arms- trying to calm him.

 

“Shh, it’s okay. Please stop crying, it's okay,” Harold heard his oldest sobbing, “don’t cry please don’t cry.”

 

His chest clenched, as he managed to sit up straight, “W-what’s wrong with him?”

 

“Daddy, his head is bleeding,” his oldest cried.

 

“Hand him here,” Harold croaked, “hand him here and get out of the car. We’re walking.”

 

“Where to daddy? He’s hurt we have to take to the Doctor’s,” the little boy sobbed.

 

Harold shook his head and took the screaming child from his oldest son, “It’s okay, buddy. It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay, just get out of the car.”

 

Harold looked down at the little boy in his arms, the side of his head was bleeding- or to be more exact his ear was leaking blood. He looked alert and sounded it to if the wailing that he was letting out was anything to go by. Harold cradled the infant close, wrapping the blanket tighter around the little boy, hoping to chase away the chill that had settled in the cab of the truck in the time he’d been knocked out.

 

In all honesty, he didn’t know how bad the damage was to his son, he wasn’t a doctor, all he could really go by was the fact that the little boy was moving and breathing. It wouldn’t matter for long, though, soon they’d all be in a better place where no one could separate his boys from him. His plan had changed due to the wreck but the end game was still the same- he could still have this all end his way.

 

Harold managed to open his door; he maneuvered his way out of the car with his infant son in his arms and walked around to the front of the car talking his oldest son’s little hand.

 

“Daddy, where are we going?”

 

“Come on, just follow me and don’t worry about it. Keep up, bud,” Harold answered as he pulled his oldest along. He had to find them a place, somewhere where no one would find them.

 

“It’s cold Daddy.”

 

“I know buddy,” he sighed as he stumbled into the forest pulling his son along behind him. He had no idea where they were but he’d find a place. He wouldn’t end it all out in the snow like this- his boys deserved better, they deserved a nice bed and a warm place. “Just keep up and I’ll find us some place warmer.”

 

“Okay, Daddy.”

 

 

 >>\-------------->

 

 

He wasn’t sure how long they’d been walking in the snow, it could’ve been hours or minutes but he just couldn’t have known for sure. All he really knew was that his youngest wasn’t crying anymore and it was starting to get both darker and colder out.

 

It was the oddest thing since they’d started walking he hadn’t heard a single thing, almost like there was nothing out there but him and the boys. He hadn’t heard any birds or any other animals for that matter- it was almost like they were the last things on earth. Harold could almost pretend that he and the boys could just hide here in the woods forever and never be found, never worry about another soul finding them ever again. He could almost pretend that they could live happily ever after here, but he knew better and he knew how all of this had to end.

 

These woods seemed so empty and it played with his head, but he couldn’t let it because he wanted to stay with his boys forever.

 

Harold looked around as he walked taking in the harsh and twisted nakedness of the trees that circled them, this place looked empty and dead.

 

It felt like nothing here was alive, Harold looked down at his youngest and felt his chest clench as he realized morbidly just how fitting it was.

 

“Daddy? My feet hurt.”

 

He looked down at his oldest, “Mine too, buddy. Just hold on a little longer and we can-”

 

He stopped short as they topped a small hill and a small cabin came into view.

 

“Look Daddy! Is that where we’re going?”

 

He sighed and gave a sad smile, “Yeah that’s it.”

 

The cabin looked run down, a window or two was broken out, and it looked well weathered- really it just looked like something that had been left to the hands of time.  It would be the perfect place- no one to stop him and no one would find them for a long time, maybe not at all even. He led this oldest along toward the cabin moving a little faster now- he’d get a fire going and get the boys comfortable before he…

 

“Daddy, someone’s in the house.”

 

“No one is in the house,” he huffed, “come on let’s get inside and get warm.”

 

He opened the door and looked inside- it was dark and dirty and only confirmed what he thought. This place had long since been abandoned.

 

“Daddy,” the boy whispered.

 

“Come on.”

 

“But-”

 

“Now!”

 

He held his hand out for his boy, giving him a stern look that dared him to go against his word. The boy was quick to comply; he took his Dad’s hand and followed him inside without another word.

 

 Once inside Harold did a sweep of the dirty old house, looking around just to make sure that they were, in fact, the only residents at the time. He sat the boys down on a dusty old couch, while he went about starting a fire to warm the place up. It was warmer in the house, but even though they were no longer out in the snow the drafts that came in through the broken windows still managed to bite at them, but it couldn’t really be helped.

 

He looked over his youngest son, his eyes looking over the one-year-old for any other injuries. He looked fine, other that his ear bleeding there was nothing wrong, he didn’t seem to be in pain and he’d stopped crying. Harold could see some bruising around his ear, but that was about it.

 

“You’re okay, aren’t you, kiddo,” Harold sighed as he gently wiped away what blood he could, “just a little scratch is all.”

 

He kissed his boys’ foreheads before standing up and stumbling toward the hallway- he could feel his chest tightening up as he realized that there was no more stalling.

 

“Watch your little brother,” he called over his shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

 

Harold stumbled down the hallway until he was sure the boys couldn’t see him anymore and let his legs give out on him. He felt tears cascading down his face as he sunk to the floor with his back to the wall.

 

His mind spun with all the things he’d done.

 

He’d killed his wife, his ex-boss, and some poor dumb ass cop who’d pulled him over for speeding. He’d taken his sons and ran off with them with the intention to- to kill them and himself. He couldn’t lose them to anyone again, not his boys- if he couldn’t have them then no one could.

 

They were his world.

 

“Daddy, there’s a lady outside…”

 

No one was going to take his sons away- not that bitch of a mother-in-law of his.

 

“…and she’s not touching the floor!”

 

Not the damn cops or any damn judge.

 

“Daddy?”

 

The boys were his and he’d die before he let anyone take them away from him. He’d kill them before he’d let them be taken away.

 

He’d keep them together but he couldn’t do that while they were still breathing. 

 

He slid the gun out of his pocket and counted the bullets again. Three, three remaining bullets that would end it all and set them free from everything. He took a deep breath and forced himself to his feet, he could do this.

 

He would do this and put it all to a blissful end.

 

Harold’s knees trembled as he walked back into the living room to find his oldest son looking out the large dirty sliding glass door. His youngest was sitting on the couch quietly watching his older brother. Harold slowly walked up behind his oldest son and fell to his knees. He turned his boy around and hugged him tightly to his chest before pulling back and kissing his forehead.

 

“I love you so much,” Harold whispered, “you know that right?”

 

The little boy nodded, “I love you too Daddy.”

 

Harold let him go and brushed the boy’s hair from his face with his free hand as his other hand sat in his lap clutching the small gun. The little boy looked down, seeing what his Daddy was holding.

 

“Are we going to play cowboys, Daddy?”

 

“Yeah, w-we’re going to play cowboys. First, though, I need you to turn around and cover your eyes.”

 

The little boy looked confused, “Why daddy? That’s not how you play Cowboys.”

 

Harold closed his eyes tightly, fighting back the fresh tears as he cleared his throat and spoke, “This is a special kind of Cowboys. Now, do what I said or we can’t play.”

 

The little boy nodded, “Alright Daddy.”

 

He put his back to his Harold and covered his eyes, following his father’s instructions to the tee. Harold felt his stomach twist and his heart clench painfully in his chest as he raised his gun to the back of his little boy’s head. Fresh tears poured down his face as he silent begged for forgiveness.

 

He readied himself to pull the trigger, but right before his finger pulled back a pair of hands took hold of his face. Harold’s eyes went wide as he was yanked back away from his son and lifted from the ground as though he weighed nothing. He went to yell out in panic but he was cut off as he neck was snapped.

 

Harold’s body twitched and shuddered as he died in the cold arms of someone or something. He was dead before he even realized who had gotten a hold of him

 

 

  >>\-------------->

 

 

“Daddy?”

 

Barney turned around and removed his hands from his eyes to find that his father was no longer there. His Daddy was gone. He walked around the house twice looking for him, before making his way to the open front door.

 

“Daddy?”

 

There was no one out there.

 

“Daddy? Where are you?”

 

The only footsteps in the snow where the ones they had made walking into the cabin.

 

“Daddy! Daddy, where did you go?”

 

The three-year-old searched the house over and over until he got tired and it got too cold to stray too far from his little brother and the fire. Barney sat close to the fire with his little brother in his lap, he didn’t know when Daddy would be back but he knew that they had to wait. He knew if they left that they might miss Daddy and he’d get mad. So he would just wait with his little brother till Daddy came back.

 

Barney’s stomach rumbled loudly and so did his little brother’s, hopefully, Daddy would bring back something to eat and soon.

 

“It’ll be okay,” Barney whispered to his little brother, “I’ll keep you safe.”

 

His little brother huffed and looked over up at his big brother.

 

“Don’t be afraid okay.”

 

He held on tighter to his little brother, they had to be brave.

 

The sound of something rolling over the floor made Barney jump, he looked over to his left to find a big cherry rolling toward him. He reached over and picked it then looked into the darkness from where it had come from.

 

_“I’ll keep you both safe.”_

 

Barney looked up in surprise to see the lady who didn’t touch the ground standing in the darkness.

 

“Thank you.”

 

_“Little one is hurt.”_

 

Barney nodded, “He hit his head.”

 

_“I’ll make it better.”_

 

Barney was still as a long bony arm reached out and gently touched the side of his little brother’s head, smearing the blood that coated his ear and cheek. The little one blinked in surprise as the hand touches him. His eyes locked on the lady for a moment before a smile lit up his face- Barney smiled too.

 

_“All better.”_

 

“You feel better now, Clint?”

 

Clint gurgled happily and reached from the lady in the darkness, his little fingers gripped at her long fingers as he giggled happily.

 

“Mama,” he cooed loudly.

 

 

>>\-------------->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited and reposted: 3/5/16


	2. The beating of Moth's wings

 

**“A ghost is an emotion bent out of shape, condemned to repeat itself time and time again.”**

**-Mama, 2013**

 

 

Clint sat up bolt right in bed, his brow was damp and his breathing labored. His heart thudded in his chest as the last remnants of his nightmare faded from his head and the real world around him came into focus in the sharp painful clarity he was used to. Clint’s head spun slightly and he winced as his ragged mind was met with a visual onslaught of information.

 

He was in a strange bed. It was dark. The gritty yellow glow of the street light outside was slipping through the unfamiliar curtains and right into his eyes. He was naked. There was someone else in the bed. His bed partner was also naked. This wasn’t his bed. This wasn’t the Tower-

 

He pressed the heels of is palms against his eyes, cutting off the automatic surge of information to his brain and groaned silently at a headache creeping up between his eyes. He took a deep breath as he remembered the activities of last night – or a few hours ago really- and then cringed.

 

Yeah, that explained a lot.

 

He remembered the bar, the alcohol, the dart contest, more alcohol, the nice blonde lady, even more alcohol, the less than graceful stroll back to nice blonde lady’s apartment, then the drunken sex, and finally passing out as the grand finale to this night of poor choices.

 

 _Fuck_ , Clint silently mouthed out, dragging his hands down his gritty and sweat dampened face.

 

He really needs to stop this shit, getting shit faced then going home and sleeping with strangers was not a habit that an Avengers needed to keep- Tony had quit now Clint really needed to follow suit, because this was eventually going to look really bad.

 

Well, it already did but Clint liked to think that at least he hadn’t reached the point where his face was on some trashy tabloid with a headline reading ‘Yet another sex fiend avenging the people of New York?’ or something along that line. Sure maybe measuring rock bottom by Tony’s past headlines wasn’t the best way to go about life but it was a start.

 

Clint threw the comforters off of himself, cringing as the thin sheets clung to his damp skin and then went to throw his legs over the side of the bed. There was a brief moment of pause, a moment where Clint’s body and mind both froze and a small primal part of his mind thought back to some foggy part of his nightmare. That foggy memory made him hesitant to put his feet on the floor, to expose the darkness under the bed, it played on that old childhood fear that something would grab him.

 

It was stupid and it made him feel silly, but none the less it still gave him pause.

 

 _Don’t be such a wuss_ he thought to himself as he pushed those thoughts away and set his bare feet down the soft carpet. He sighed and silently berated himself for letting his nightmares get to him, there weren’t even real just something stupid that his mind tormented him with.

 

Clint stretched and groaned as he felt his bones pop, he paused as he felt the bed move slightly; he glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping naked blonde - she’d only shifted in her sleep. Clint was thankful he hadn’t woken her- it would’ve made running off into the early hours of the morning, never be heard from again sort of difficult.

 

He reached over and grabbed his hearing aids from the nightstand, then slipped them in then carefully and got to his feet. He went to work on gathering his scattered clothes and other belongings, making sure to keep as quiet as possible.

 

He didn’t like the idea of being thought of as a cut and run sort of guy when it came to drunken one night stands, but he kind of was and well a one night stand was sort of self-explanatory. There was hooking up, good sex all around, and if you were lucky no awkward waking up next to each other and trying like hell to remember each other’s names or suffer through a very quiet and uncomfortable breakfast.

 

Clint always made sure to never stay around long enough for the other party- or parties given how drunk he was the night before or what mood he was in- to wake up. He had a system down for these kinds of things, he’d have his fun and make sure the other(s) had fun and then come morning his ass was gone before his bed partner(s) could even roll over. 

 

Clint wasn’t the type to over value sex or relationships in general- they could be fun while they lasted but in the long run he never liked to get too attached. Attachments always led to trouble and nothing but a headache in the end, and really considering who he was those were two things in his life that he had more than enough of.  He really didn’t need to have any significant others getting thrown into the mix- he’d let the other Avengers deal with that shit, he was perfectly fine not being stuck with entanglements.

 

He yanked his shirt- or was this one of Thor’s?

 

He’d admit it, he was really getting bad about swiping either Steve or Thor’s shirts when he was in hurry- he blamed it more on the fact that he usually tossed his laundry in with someone else’s load or would just grab something from a nearby laundry basket without really checking.

 

Anyway, who’s ever shirt it was he slipped it over his head and shimmied into his jeans as he headed out the bedroom door with his socks tucked his pocket.

 

The struggle to get his jeans up over his ass was real- he had to all but jump up and down just to get them all the way up and it was ridiculous.

 

“Damn it,” he whispered as he strained to get the jean up over his ass, “Natasha I swear this is the last time I let you buy jeans for me. Fucking skinny jeans- the hell are people thinking.”

 

Natasha and Pepper’s taste in clothing would eventually be the death of him- or cause him to go sterile. Jeans that were this tight should’ve been considered health risks- or torture devices. He hated wearing the jeans that either woman picked out for him.

 If he had the choice- and really as a grown ass man he should- he’d be walking around in a nice pair of jeans from the thrift shop- but as it was ever since Natasha and Pepper had stumbled in his life he’d been thrust into the world of high fashion.

 

He didn’t understand why they hadn’t man handled Steve or Thor into wearing this crap but thank goodness he was more than capable of sneaking baggy t-shirts and jeans that weren’t hell bent on cutting off circulation to his dangly parts past the fashion police- and if that didn’t work he tended just to “borrow” some clothing from Thor or Steve and a belt.

 

Natasha and Pepper’s choice in clothing usually made him to center of all the right attention when he went out but it was the morning after when he was fighting to get the damn things back on that left him cursing them. Clint managed to zip and button his jeans as he hobbled into the living room, he looked under the coffee table where he remembered toeing off his shoes and quickly slipped his socks and shoes on. He grabbed the grey hoodie he came in- yet another borrowed article of clothing but this time from Bruce- and slipped on the purple beanie with the ‘H’ on it that Darcy had given him as he headed for the door.

 

 After doing a quick check to make sure he had everything, head headed out but not before he made sure to lock up after himself on the way out- he might not be gentlemanly enough to stay for breakfast but he sure as hell could manage to at least make sure his bed partner was safe on his way out.

 

Once Clint exited the apartment building he took a deep breath of the cold city morning air to clear his head and took in the world around him- the sun wasn’t even up yet, but a little tint of light was just starting to brighten up the dark sky.

 

This was his time of day, the early morning walk home after a one night stand was the only time he really let his mind think about his reasoning for his actions. His thought tended to circle around things like how he was eventually going to have to give up and actually sit down and talk with the SHEILD physiatrists about his issues or about how awkward was it going to be to have to ask JARVIS to scan him for any STDS again. Yes, he used protection, but you could never be too careful about those sort of things and he’d rather talk to an AI about that sort of stuffs then have Bruce or some SHEILD doctor give him the safe sex talk- those were two situations he never wanted to relive.

 

Those were the lighter thoughts that he thought about on his walks home, the one that he tended to cringe and try to avoid were about his nightmares. They were always of the same thing, that cabin and that woman called Mama. He could never remember much of anything else after he woke up from those dreams- just the cabin and Mama and emotions that would leave him reeling.

 

Honestly, it was the emotions and the small aches that left Clint feeling the worst. After one of his nightmares he always felt wrung out, painfully alone, and there was this strong feeling of paranoia like someone was looking over his shoulder. He was always left with a crick in his neck after those dreams- it always felt like the back of his neck was too stiff.

 

It was just something he’d gotten used to over time- just like the slight twist in his stomach when he’d hear Loki’s name. They were both just something he had learned to deal with- though maybe binge drinking to blackout and random sex with strangers to wake up feeling a little less alone weren’t the best ways of dealing, but considering the ways that the people he lived with tended to deal with things maybe his way wasn’t that bad.

 

Right, maybe his way held a bit more danger and a few health risks but really they weren’t so bad.  At least he wasn’t spending all night in the archery ranger again- okay maybe Tony had locked him out of there after he’d torn his hands up pretty bad last time and that was the only real reason he wasn’t currently there tearing up a target with a few well-placed arrows.

 

The point of it all was that his vices weren’t the worst of the worst when it came to the Avengers- they were, however, less constructive and maybe a bit more pathetic.

 

There he went measuring himself against others again- he needed to stop that.

 

Clint managed to catch the last subway train back toward the Tower for the night- or early morning considering the time. He rubbed at his tired eyes as he sat by himself on the dirty and poorly lit subway car, he had his hearing aid volume low enough so that the loud rattling of the tracks wouldn’t bother the dull ache that was slowly starting to form behind his temples. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was the drinking or lack of quality sleep that was making his head ache, but really he didn’t care he just wished the damn subway train would speed up so he could get home, grab a bite to eat, and shower. If he was lucky he’d get home before any of the others woke up, he liked being able to sneak back in without catching any worried looks from the others. He hated those looks- they left him feeling like a total ass for making them worry.

 

The Avengers had enough shit on their plates without having to keep an eye on their resident antisocial bird brain.

 

Clint sighed and slouched in his seat, letting his eyes close- he just hoped that Natasha given up waiting on him and headed to bed. He knew she worried about him but he wasn’t in the mood for one of her looks- she could kindly save it for one of the others because Clint was pretty sure that he’d end up snapping at her over it this time. He couldn’t understand why but he just felt out of whack- he felt more drained and achy then normal. Maybe the lack of a full night’s sleep was starting to catch up with him or maybe it was the drinking coming back to kick his ass- either way he was going to have to cut back on one and do a little more of the other, the sad thing was he wasn’t sure which one he need more of and which one he needed less of. Sleeping wasn’t too peaceful lately and drinking till he passed out seemed to fix things a little more but really his liver probably needed a break.

 

If he didn’t have so many issues with the idea of taking sleeping pills he would have already accepted the ones that Tony had offered him, it wasn’t the falling asleep that was the issue thought. No, it was what came after that was the problem and Clint had found that taking a sleeping pill made it harder for him to wake up from the nightmares. The idea of not being able to wake himself up scared him a lot more than any damage that sleep deprivation might cause, at least when he passed out drunk he could wake himself up quicker.

 

Being stuck in one of his nightmares made him feel like he had no control over himself and that in itself caused rather uncomfortable flashbacks to his time under Loki’s control.

 

A full body shiver passed over Clint, he drew himself up tighter and closed his eyes for a moment to take a deep breath- he wasn’t afraid of that little shit brother of Thor’s, in fact if Clint ever saw him again he had more than a few ideas what he planned to do to the little shit.

 

What messed with him the most when he thought about his time under the influence of the Tesseract, was how it screwed with his head. He had never told anyone but the entire time he was whammed by that damn thing, it tricked him into thinking that he had everything he’d ever wanted. The Tesseract made all the bad things in his mind and all the bad things in reality faded away, it basically tricked his mind into believing that Loki could make the world a paradise.

 

No more loneliness or emptiness.

 

_“Clint…”_

 

Clint entire body went ridged and he was jerked from his thoughts.

 

Clint’s eyes snapped opened and he looked around the empty train car. There was no one else there but him and considering that this train was moving rather fast he was pretty sure there was no one outside the damn thing either. He stood up and looked through the little window in the door that led to the next car; he didn’t see anyone in there either.  He glanced down the aisle to the next train car, there was no one in their either. Once he was certain that he was alone, Clint fiddled with the volume on his hearing aids and sat back down.

 

 “Damn things must be catching another frequency again. I thought Tony fixed that,” he sighed as he settled back into his seat and closed his eyes again, “genius inventor my ass.”

 

_“…Mama”_

 

Clint opened his eyes again only this time to find that the train car was full of moths. He jumped and gasped as he got to his feet, spooking the moths and causing them to flutter wildly around the train car. Clint covered his face and stooped down as he made a run for the door to the next car; he winced as felt the moths hitting him as he ran through them, they were freaking huge. The flapping of the moths’ wings were so loud that it thundered through his hearing aids causing painful feedback. He winced and wildly swatted away as many of the moths as could before he yanked open the door and stumble into the next car. As he slid the door harshly shut behind him, Clint lost his foot and landed hard on his knees on the unforgiving metal floor.

 

He ignored the throbbing in his knees as he caught his breath and vigorously shook his clothes of any remaining moths. He was thankful to find that not a single one had clung to him or followed after him.

 

“What the hell,” he snapped as he picked himself up off of the floor. He couldn’t believe it, where had all those things come form in such a short time.

 

It was fucking crazy.

 

_“Clint….”_

 

Clint went still as he heard that voice in a burst of static through his hearing aids. It sounded so much closer almost like….

 

Clint looked up, his eyes locked on the dirty window of the door that connected to the next car; he tilted his head to the side in confusion and squinted. Clint could just barely make out that there was a lady just beyond the door to the next car, the window’s glass was just clean enough that Clint could only make out her blurry figure. It took him a second of studying the figure to notice that it wasn’t just because of the window that the woman was fuzzy, it was almost like it was the woman herself that was fuzzy. If it wasn’t for the one blinking overhead light that she was standing under, he would’ve thought that he was just seeing a smudge on the glass.

 

Who was that and where had she come from? The entire train had been empty a moment ago, or at least Clint had been pretty sure it was- but then there also hadn’t been thousands of moths in his train car either.

 

Was there something going on?

 

Why was she just standing there?

 

Was she hurt?

 

Clint wanted to walk over to her and see who she was and if she needed any help, but for some reason, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t’ get his legs to move and he couldn’t get his mouth to work so he could call out to her.   

 

Something wasn’t right.

 

_“....my sweet….”_

 

Static rang out through Clint’s hearing aids loudly; Clint winced and moved his hands up to his ears. The static got louder and louder and it almost sounded like- like someone was trying to speak to him but the static was drowning it out. It got louder and louder causing Clint to cry out in pain, he fumbled with the aids trying to remove them but he couldn’t seem to get them out. Clint looked back toward the woman but she wasn’t there anymore- the static went dead instantly leaving Clint with nothing but white noise and a sharp pain in his head.

 

He straightened up and looked around in confusion.

 

“What the fu-?”

 

Arms wrapped around him from behind and the static screamed out in his ears like and explosion. Clint panicked and thrashed trying to go for the knife he kept in his pocket while simultaneously trying to break free from the person’s hold.

 

                _“….my little boy…..”_

“No! Let me go-”

 

Clint’s eyes opened wide as he swung out with his arm. He took deep gasping breaths as the world around him refocused around him- he was sitting back in the spot where he’d sat when he'd gotten on the train, still in the same train car, and it was moth free.  He rubbed at his face and berated himself as he came to the realization that he must have dozed off and had another nightmare.

 

“Son of a bitch,” Clint groaned as he rubbed at his eyes roughly with the palms of his hands and then scouted out his surroundings once the little starbursts from the rough treatment had left his vision, “you’re losing it, Barton.”

 

Clint didn’t close his eyes or relax again for the rest of the trip.

 

                                                                                                               

  >>\-------------->

 

                                                                                                               

 

Clint got off at his stop without any more naps in-between and walked the rest of the way to the Tower- it wasn’t exactly close but it wasn’t far enough to spring for a cab either. Plus, this wasn’t exactly the part of town that anyone had to worry too much about getting mugged- most lowlifes were smart enough to keep their trade as far from the Tower as possible. The Avengers didn’t just handle the alien invasion sized issues, anyone of them was quick to knock a few would be muggers heads together.

 

Also, Clint didn’t doubt that word had gotten around about how Thor had dangled two would-be purse snatchers by a leg each from a few stories in the air. Thor would never have dropped them, of course, but they hadn’t needed to know that- tough love was a nice teaching method sometimes.

 

So was a pretty sure thing that this area was safe as it got, but even with that in mind Clint did keep a pretty steady pace- the nightmare from the subway car still had him both a little jumpy and hyper aware. He felt stupid for it but, that didn’t cause him to change his pace.

 

Once Clint had made it to the front doors he finally paused long enough to take notice of the sky- it was starting to turn a lighter shade of blue. He sighed and glanced at his cell phone, no one should’ve been up just yet but it wouldn’t be too long before the early risers were getting up, which meant he might just end up making it in time grab a shower, change into a pair of sweats and a fresh t-shirt, and pretend to have gotten home at an acceptable hour last night. A nap didn’t really seem as possible as it had before, Clint really didn’t feel tired anymore to be honest- he felt to wound up.

 

He settled instead, on the idea of watching TV on his floor with Lucky until Bruce got JARVIS to call him down for breakfast.

 

Clint ran his ID card through the lobby doors and basically drug himself to the elevators- he didn’t waste any time pushing the button to his floor, hoping like hell that JARVIS wouldn’t decide to take him to Phil or Bruce.

 

“Good morning Agent Barton,” Jarvis greeted as the elevator started moving.

 

“Morning Jarvis,” Clint yawned, “didn’t we have this talk about calling me “Clint” instead of “Agent Barton,” at least a hundred times by now?”

 

“One hundred and four, sir,” Jarvis corrected.

 

Clint smirked, “Still not sticking is it?”

 

“No sir,” Jarvis assured.

 

“Didn’t think so,” Clint chuckled, “so mind letting me know which Avengers are up and which Avengers are out for the count?”

 

“Agent Romanoff is asleep in her room with Ms. Potts. Dr. Banner, Thor, and Sir are currently sleeping in Dr. Banner’s room. Captain Roger and Agent Coulson are asleep on the couches in the community living room.”

 

“I thought for sure Steve, and Phil would be in bed with Tony, Thor, and Bruce,” Clint said a bit too satisfied with the thought as he slipped his hand into his pockets, “why are Steve and Phil sleeping on the couch did something happen? Did they have a fight?”

 

Clint wanted to punch himself in that moment, as a sense of shame brushed away that sick sense of satisfaction once his brain caught up with the words that had left his mouth.

 

The relationship between Tony, Thor, Steve, Bruce, and Phil would never cease to be both a weak point for Clint. It had started out with Tony and Steve, then they’d added Bruce, then Thor, and finally Phil had fallen for all four of them and they’d all just seemed to work. Natasha had found something special with Pepper almost around the same time and the final nail in the coffin had come when she’d seemed to change her stance on ‘love being for children’ the day Bucky showed up at the tower. It had been very obvious to Clint that Natasha and Bucky had shared something long before he had known her and Pepper had seen it to- she’d seemed more than understanding and willing to work out something between them.

It was both parts strange and weirdly understandable when Clint thought about it. Phil and Natasha were both as different from their significant others as it got and yet they all seemed to fit together so perfectly.

 

They all just seemed to flow so smoothly, Clint had never seen any hiccups between them or heavy clashing- well they did have their wrinkles at times but they seemed to smooth them out so seamlessly that it was easy to miss them if you weren’t looking. Clint was looking, though, he was always looking for things like that, he had always had an ingrained distrust of people.

 

Once, Barney had told him that he got that from their mother, that she never trusted anyone but them. Clint could still remember how Barney had gotten mad at him for saying how he thought she was right to be like that, that you should never trust anyone how wasn’t family.

 

Family was forever and everything else was temporary.

 

Maybe that was the reason for the mistrust he had toward the others. For the longest Phil and Natasha had been his family and he had them all to himself and suddenly he had to share both or their attention between six other people who he barely even knew. He hated to think that he was possessive of Phil and Natasha and jealous of the others for having their attention but the fact of the matter was it was the truth even if he tried not and even with it being a fact and he needed to get over himself.

 

Clint had never seen either Phil or Natasha as happy as they were in their new relationships- it was nice to see them both that happy and that’s all he ever wanted for either of them even if it still left Clint fighting feelings of a possessive and jealous nature.

 

The fact that he felt that way left him feeling sick to his stomach at times and furious with himself when he let himself really think about how stupid it was. It was something that sort of screwed with his life a little more than he should’ve allowed.

 

 He didn’t really join in on the team bonding most of the time simply because he felt ashamed of how seeing Natasha or Phil sitting with one of their significant other made his gut clench or left him biting the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping at someone. He usually thought it better to kindly decline and step back from most situations that ended with situations where he had to share them.

 

 Clint hated it but he’d never been good at sharing people that he considered his- he felt a little sick at thinking that any other person was _his_ but for a lack of better words that was the only way he could describe it to himself, thankfully he’d never had to explain his weird little way of thinking aloud to anyone else. He was pretty sure Natasha and Phil wouldn’t have enjoyed him calling them _his_ , even if it wasn’t meant in a sexual way- well with Natasha it had never been in that way, with Phil it had been meant in that way a few times in the past. Clint had never let anything like that happen for fear of losing Phil. The man had never seemed interested in him that way any way, neither had Natasha for that matter, so it had never been much of an issue.

 

In all honesty, maybe that had been for the best considering that Clint must have had faulty wiring in his head or something, because he’d never been able to handle an actual romantic relationship. Clint never been good with a simple monogamous relationship so the idea of being exclusive with five or more other people seemed damn near impossible to him. He just didn’t understand how people could do that, just be with someone else- he’d never been good at forming lasting healthy relationships, mainly because of that stupid possessive nature of his and that strong mistrust he felt toward people.

 

The only exceptions he’d ever made had been Natasha and Phil, and lately, Clint had noticed that it had been biting him in the ass.

 

 “Last night was movie night, sir,” Jarvis explained, “and there was a Lord of the Rings marathon chosen for the movies of the night. Dr. Banner even managed to remove Sir from the lab for the occasion, though Sir did not manage to make it through the second movie and Dr. Banner did not fare much better. Captain Rogers had Thor carry them both to bed, while he and Phil continued watching the films. Ms. Potts managed to get through the first part of the third film but fell asleep and Agent Romanoff and Mr. Barnes took her to bed. Captain Rogers and Agent Coulson fell asleep after waiting up for you, Agent Barton. ”

 

                Clint frowned and felt bad for keeping Phil and Steve up so late. He’d told everyone countless of times not to do that, he’d stumble in eventually and be just fine. He didn’t need baby sitters.

 

“So, I missed movie night? I knew I was forgetting something,” Clint sighed, “On a scale of one to ten how pissed off was Natasha?”

 

It was an unspoken rule, movie nights were not to be missed unless the city was on the brink of destruction or you were in trouble. That unspoken rule maybe have been threateningly spoken in Clint’s direction once or twice by Natasha, she’d noticed his avoidance of most of most of the team and had put her foot down about movie night. Clint had given her that much, knowing that if he put up to much of a fight about it that she’d dig at his reason for it. He really didn’t want to have a heart to heart with Natasha about his reasoning behind blowing the team off so much- he didn’t think that would go over to well.

 

“If I were to make a guess, sir, I would say it is possible that it is a seven on that scale,” Jarvis answered.

 

Clint relaxed slight, “Not too bad, still not good, though. At least with a seven, I get to keep the movement in my toes.”

 

There would be no horrible maiming; sparring with her was going to be a bitch, though. She’d get him on the mats later and that wouldn’t be very funny on his part- she’d probably leave him sore as hell and bruised in a few places.

 

“I must also point out that Steve was a bit disappointed,” he added.

 

That was another matter entirely.

 

“Ouch Jarvis, just rub salt in the wounds,” Clint grumbled, “who knew an AI could be so cold.”

 

He hated disappointing Steve almost as bad as he hating disappointing Phil- both left him feeling like an ass and Jarvis knew this as did most of the other Avengers. Steve had this thing he did with his eyes that made Clint think of every sad moment in every Disney movie he’d ever watched, it was completely opposite to one of Phil’s looks, but the effect was still potent as hell.

 

“Anything I can do to help, sir,” Jarvis replied, “also I must point out that I am a creation of Tony Stark.”

 

“No one likes a sassy AI, Jarvis,” Clint jabbed back.

 

“I must remind you that Ms. Romanoff has pointed out that I am her favorite AI exactly twenty-three times just this week.”

 

“Yeah, well DUM-E is my favorite. Less snark with him and he appreciates it when I throw his tennis ball for him.”

 

“He also enjoys it when Mr. Barnes does it as well,” Jarvis pointed out.

 

“That’s just me-” Clint stopped as something dawned on him suddenly, “hey, wait a second where is Bucky? You told me where everyone else was but not him.”

 

“That is because Mr. Barnes asked me not to tell you before we reached your floor,” Jarvis answered.

 

The elevator doors opened as if on cue, with Bucky standing on the other side with his arms crossed and his eyebrow raised.

 

“Sonofabitch,” Clint huffed, “Jarvis you suck.”

 

“Thank you, Jarvis,” Bucky said.

 

“Your very welcome, Mr. Barnes,” Jarvis replied.

 

Clint stepped out of the elevator and side stepped Bucky, pulling off his beanie as he headed for the door that separated his floor from the elevator lobby

 

“You smell like bad decisions and a dive bar,” Bucky sighed as he followed after him.

 

“You smell like popcorn and back handed deals with an evil AI,” Clint accused at he entered his access code into the keypad next to his door, “Natasha is rubbing off on you.”

 

“Natasha was worried about you,” Bucky said.

 

“That was uncalled for,” Clint huffed as he opened the door and went in.

 

Clint flicked on the lights and kicked off his shoes, Bucky was right behind him shutting and locking the door behind him.

 

“One phone call would’ve been nice,” Bucky said with no heat behind it.

 

Bucky had never been as pushy about these things as everyone else- he seemed to be a little more understanding without even knowing all the facts. Bucky was honestly one of the Avengers that Clint could truly say that he was good friends with. Bucky seemed to be better at knowing when to back off and when to totally ride Clint’s ass about something- also Bucky seemed to understand that Clint needed alone time with Natasha and Phil sometimes even though he never said anything about it.

 

Clint caught on that Bucky might have felt the same way about Steve as he did over Natasha and Phil. He sort of felt like maybe Bucky got him to a certain extent.

 

“I know. I-I well I was sort of drunk,” Clint answered sheepishly, “and I sort of forgot about movie night.”

 

“Well, at least you’re not dead in a gutter somewhere,” Bucky sighed.

 

“Yay, positive thinking,” Clint deadpanned as he pulled Bruce’s hoodie off and tossed it onto the nearby couch. 

 

“You know me,” Bucky sighed, “I’m all about positive thinking.”

 

“No, you're all about being an ass,” Clint pointed out as he toed off his socks.

 

“There’s that too,” Bucky chuckled.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Clint yawned before pausing and looking around, “hey where’s my dog?”

 

“Lucky has recently acquired better taste in bed partners,” Bucky answered, “he’s crashing with Natasha and Pep.”

 

“Ouch, rejected by my own dog,” Clint huffed.

 

“Considering how you currently smell, I don’t blame him. I seriously hope that you’re going to shower before bed.”

 

“You gonna be my cuddle buddy tonight, Barnes?”

 

“You bet your ass I am.”

 

Clint shook his head, “ ‘m not tired. I don’t need you to help me go to sleep. Go back down to yours and the girls’ room and go on to bed.”

 

Clint’s problem with nightmares wasn’t exactly a secret- sure no one knew what they were about- but he fallen asleep one to many times on the couch on the common floor for someone not to have walked in during the tail end of one of his nightmares. What seem to make it worse was that he accidently admitted to his strong dislike of sleeping alone during a drugged up overnight stay in the SHEILD medical facility after a difficult mission left him pretty roughed up. He’d panicked thinking that Phil was going to leave him there by himself and clung to his hand for a moment before he’d gotten control over himself. He’d been beyond embarrassed over the whole thing, what had made it worse was that the whole team had been there for Clint’s momentary panic attack.

 

No one had made any comments about it- not even Tony, which had been a little odd- and thankfully, no one had stopped Phil and Natasha from staying overnight with him.

 

It wasn’t so much that he was afraid of sleeping alone, it was more to do with the fact that he was afraid that he might not be able to wake himself up from one of his nightmares. The idea of being stuck in one of his nightmares terrified, he knew that if he had someone else around that his thrashing would eventually wake them up and they would, in turn, wake him up. It was a bit selfish but it was a fail-safe that Clint needed.

 

Sense moving into the Tower he had needed to resort to that very much, Jarvis usually woke him up if it got too bad and he always let Lucky sleep in the bed with him so he’d have someone there for comfort. Thankfully Lucky was as much of a cuddle whore as Clint so things usually worked in his favor.

 

“You look dead on your feet and the bags under your eyes are so dark that you are starting to look like you’re wearing really fucked up eyeliner,” Bucky pointed out, “also your dog is in my spot.”

 

However, there were times when the nightmares got too rough and Jarvis and Lucky just couldn’t cut it. Those were the times that Natasha or Phil would try to come to the rescue- or as of lately Bucky. Clint had been pretty persistent about not letting Phil into his bed- he didn’t want Phil to see just how bad the nightmares got or that they sometimes featured him.

 

He’d had one too many nightmares of being the one who stabbed Phil, screamed himself awake one too many times yelling out Phil’s name, so that wasn’t an option anymore.

 

Natasha and Bucky, though, were both sneakier that Phil and had no problem cornering Clint when he was nearly dead on his feet. They didn’t give two shits about Clint’s sleep deprived protests- when it came to those two he was either going to suck it up and let them help or they were going to do something embarrassing to him to get him to sleep.

 

He’d learned not to fight them too much- that didn’t mean that he didn’t act like a dick during the entire process, though.

 

“Bet my eyeliner looks better than yours did,” Clint grumbled as he rubbed at his eyes.

 

“Fuck you, Barton,” Bucky said with an eye roll.

 

“I might be too tired to respond to that right now,” Clint yawned as he pulled off his t-shirt and let it fall to the floor as he made his way to his room.

 

“Figured as much,” he heard Bucky chuckle.

 

Clint didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Bucky was picking up the clothes he’d left behind- it was just something the guy always did when Clint would come home like this. It was nice of him, not necessary, but nice.

 

“Still don’t need you to stay,” Clint called back as he dropped his pants and underwear once he was inside his master bathroom, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

 

Clint didn’t wait for a reply, he turned on the water until it was a little too warm and slipped into the shower. The water was just barely above being to intolerably hot, but still nice enough to handle. It didn’t feel good but it felt like it was washing away what it needed to and warming up the cold parts that need to be warmed.

 

“I do and I am,” Bucky spoke up as his hand reached into the shower and turned the water down just enough to no longer be on the borderline of scalding hot, “hurry up and wash up before you pass out in the shower.”

 

Bucky didn’t say a word about the temperature, he never did when they had one of their little slumber parties- he’d just turn the temperature down and keep up whatever conversation they had going.  Clint had no doubt that Natasha had told him about Clint’s little ritual with the scalding hot water.

 

He had never been sure if he should be embarrassed or grateful- usually, he settled on just ignoring it and moving on. Clint knew that Bucky had his own quirks here and there and he understood that he didn’t like attention drawn to them either- he was pretty sure that was one of the many reasons that he got a long with Bucky so well.

 

Birds of a feather and all that bullshit.

 

                “Jerk,” Clint said as he washed up.

 

                “Punk,” Bucky replied back.

 

                Clint pretended that he wasn’t smiling as he rinsed off and stepped out of the shower, he caught the towel that Bucky tossed at him and dried off at the other man stepped into the bedroom. Clint had never been one to be very shy about being naked around other- Bucky seemed to be just as uncaring about the whole thing. Honestly, they’d become a little too comfortable around each other and it was really Natasha’s fault, the woman had no shame when it came to taking care of Clint or Bucky.

 

                The number of times that Natasha had simply waltz right it on Clint naked for one reason or another was ridiculous and the number of time she’d dragged Bucky in with her was slowly but surely starting to become ridiculous. Clint was just grateful that she knew better than to pull that with Pepper- Clint had no issues with Bucky because Bucky was cut from the same cloth at Natasha and him, Pepper was not.

               

                Sure she was probably use to nakedness considering working for Tony for so long, but Clint still made sure to set the ground rule with Natasha about Pepper- so far they hadn’t been tested or broken.

Clint quickly brushed his teeth to get rid of the stale taste of beer from his mouth and stepped out into his bedroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around him. Bucky was pulling out clothes for him.

 

“It this Steve’s shirt?”

 

Clint shrugged as he grabbed to the underwear and slipped them on- he tossed the towel over his shoulder not needing to turn to know that it had gone in the laundry basket, “Could be. I’m a notorious clothes thief.”

 

                “Yeah, I noticed when I found my sweat pants in your one of your dressers,” Bucky chuckled as he tossed the shirt over to Clint.

 

                “Huh, I thought those were Tony’s.”

               

                “What made you think that?”

 

                “I didn’t think you liked AC/DC,” Clint admitted.

 

                “All that time I spent down in Tony’s workshop having him work on my arm broadened my tastes in music.”

 

                “You stole those from him, didn’t you.”

 

                “They are the most comfortable pants in the world and I am not giving them back.”

 

                Clint laughed as he slipped on the shirt and a pair of sleep pants on, he couldn’t blame him those were some pretty damn comfortable pants. Clint climbed into bed as he thought of away to sneak them away from Bucky later. As he took out his hearing aids and put them away, Bucky turned out the light and climbed into bed next to him.

 

                Clint rolled onto his side facing away from Bucky and closed his eyes, Bucky laid on his back and got close enough that the side of his body that Clint was next to touch Clint’s back.

 

                “Thanks, Bucky.”

 

                Clint was out cold before Bucky could reply- apparently, Clint hadn’t been at wound up as he had thought.

 

 

        >>\------------>

 

 

 

Chapter 3: Chapter Two: Her whispers are static in my ears...

 

 

 

 

                What woke Clint up from the sweet oblivion of dreamless sleep was the sudden movement of the breathing heat source he had warming his feet and the muffled sounds of protest over being used as a foot warmer as well as a body pillow.

 

                Clint groaned and blindly chased after the warmth with his cold feet, once they found the warmth again he buried his face into his pillow and attempted to go back to sleep- a poke to the side of his head ruined it for him. Clint peeked out from his pillow to find his breathing heat source looking at him in slight annoyance- to top it off his head throbbed slightly from the brightness of the room.

 

                Clint squinted his eyes and smirked as Bucky signed out that his feet were as cold as Pepper’s were and told him to put some damn socks on. Clint sleepily signed back, that Bucky needed to man up and that Lucky never complained.

 

Bucky promptly smacked him with a pillow and rolled out of bed, taking is inhuman body heat with him.

 

                “Ass,” Clint mumbled into his pillow, “my head hurts don’t hit me.”

 

                Clint closed his eyes and stretched out like a starfish on his bed, he wriggled his fingers and toes, chasing away the sleep from his mind and body. His neck and shoulders gave a sharp twinge of protest at the stretch and movements, which seemed to be a straight line to the dull ache behind his eyes because his head gave a sharp throb along with his sore body. Clint ignored all that thought, in favor of basking in the nice underlying feeling that came with that first good stretch of the morning.

 

                Also, he may have been enjoying the fact that he hadn’t woken up to a wet tongue and a cold nose- he loved Lucky with his entire heart but the breath on that dog in the morning was rough.

 

                A sharp poke in the side, ended Clint’s blissful stretch, causing him to squawk out in annoyance and look up to find Bucky holding out his hearing aids and two Tylenol to him. Clint immediately dry swallowed the pills before even attempting to slide his aids in.

 

                “I swear I’m going to start putting socks on your feet before I let you go to sleep,” Clint heard Bucky grumble as he situated his aids in his ears and adjusted the volume.

 

                “Don’t be such a baby,” Clint teased, “you are like a human furnace it can’t be that bad.”

 

                “It’s like sleeping with blocks of moving ice against my legs,” Bucky shot back.

 

                “Natasha never whines.”

 

                “Natasha is Russian,” Bucky pointed out, “they don’t get cold.”

 

                “Okay, you’ve got me there.”

               

                “Now get up, I’m sure someone is working on getting breakfast together as we speak. I’m going to take a shower and you’re going to go down stairs and face Natasha’s wrath.”

 

                Clint groaned and buried himself back under pillows and blankets, “No, just let me suffocate in this nice Bucky warmed bed.”

 

                A swift jerk had all the blankets and pillows off of Clint, leaving him exposed to both the cold and Bucky’s unimpressed look- the unimpressed look from Bucky may have had something to do with the not so manly yelp that Clint had let out.

 

                “Go be a man.”

 

                Clint flopped onto his back and pouted, “You’re mean and I hope your arm rusts in the shower.”

 

                “You’re a whiny brat and I hope Natasha corners you during breakfast.”

 

                Clint sat up, “That is just cruel. You’ve wounded me emotionally, now go and leave me to wither away.”

               

                “You can go willingly now or I will get the super soaker and have no regrets over what comes after,” Bucky warned.

 

 Clint groaned knowing that he would not win on this, the super soaker threat was not just a threat it was, in fact, a promise. The archer mopily rolled out of bed and stomped into the bathroom to relieve himself and then brush his teeth.

 

                Also, he might have been hoping that if he stayed in there long enough that Bucky would leave and he could crawl back into bed and laze about a bit longer.

               

                It didn’t work out like that.

 

 

              >>\-------------->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited and reposted: 3/5/16


	3. Her whispers are static in my ears...

 

 

By the time Buck had managed to drag Clint from the bathroom and frog march him to the elevator, the sky was bright and the smell of breakfast greeted him once the elevator doors opened up on the communal area of the tower.

 

He inhaled the scent of a home cooked meal as he exited the elevator and stepped into the oversized living room- Bruce was cooking this morning, he could tell from the smell alone because when Thor cooked, it was never this quiet and there tended to be and over whelming smell of bacon.

 

Clint liked bacon as much as the next guy but once the pancakes started to smell like bacon, that’s where he drew his line- plus in all honesty he liked Bruce’s cooking more. Bruce’s cooking had more of a vegetarian base to it, Clint had always liked eating leafier and fruit based foods, they were easier on his stomach. Though after a particularly hard battle of a draining mission Clint tended to like Thor’s cooking more- the God of Thunder could cook a meal that consisted entirely of meat- and he’d pretty much figured out that when Clint wanted meat that he wanted something as rare as it could get without Bruce throwing a fit about health risks.

 

Clint might have had an odd relationship with food at times- one that had him either stock piling food in his room or forgetting to eat unless Bruce or Phil were shoving a plate under his nose. Then there was the cherry thing, Clint sort of survived off of those for the longest. Clint could vaguely remember a time before the circus when all he and Barney had to eat were the wild cherries. Barney would bring them to him from out of nowhere. He couldn’t ever remember where he’d gotten them from but they were food and Barney hadn’t let him ask too many questions about it.

 

It was something the followed him into adulthood, a weird and almost obsessive quirk that Natasha and Phil had taken advantage of before the Avengers and managed to get everyone involved with after the Avengers had gotten all domestic. It had long since been established that if you wanted Clint to eat all you had to do was toss him a cherry and if for some weird reason that didn’t work just tattle to Phil or Bruce- the medical unit at SHEILD had taken great pleasure in learning these things, especially the tattling part.

 

Clint wasn’t sure if the medical unit staff was truly concerned about him being a little under feed or if they just like to see him get ripped a new one by the usually calm Dr. Banner and scolded into submission by the high ranking Agent Coulson. Either way, the medical unit staff abused this knowledge when they could and it put them on his list of people he didn’t like being around.

 

The sound of light snoring coming from the ridiculously oversized couch that Tony had put in the living room when he renovated brought Clint out of his thoughts.

 

He quietly made his way over, peeking over the back of the couch and smiled at what he saw. Phil was playing the little spoon to Steve and Steve had Phil wrapped up in his arms with his face buried against Phil’s shoulder. The sight left a weird mix of awe and jealousy - seeing Phil so easily relaxed in sweats and t-shirt with someone was something that Clint hadn’t expect at first. It had taken forever for Phil to feel this comfortable with him and Natasha, it had taken a few months for Clint to talk Phil into and yet he’d had no qualms about causal wear with Steve and the others.

 

Agent Phil Coulson had been the bad ass emotionless secret agent in a suit back when Clint had first joined- he still was of course, just now he was the over protective badass handler of the Avengers with or without the suit. He was also the most solid presence in Clint’s less than stable life, an even more solid presence than Natasha. It was because of that reason that he was so happy to see Phil relaxed and safely held in Steve’s arms, he wanted Phil to be happy even if it meant that he didn’t get to keep him to himself anymore and the same thing went for Natasha, but it still annoyed him at how easily they’d relaxed with the others. He’d had to work with them for so long to get them comfortable with him, it had taken barely a year the others to get them into that relaxed state of mind.

 

Clint wasn’t stupid- he understood that it was different with the others, Natasha and Phil had intimate relationships with them. It still left him with a case of the green-eyed monster.

 

He wouldn’t lie to himself, not about something like that because it was natural to feel jealous when two people who you pretty much based your life around found other people to base their lives around. It wasn’t something that he tried to let bother him to much because at least they hadn’t completely left him- they were still here and they were happy. Clint might not have liked sharing them but he’d never refuse to let them be happy- and really the people they’d found were nice and kind and they seemed to like and tolerate him enough to not toss him out on his ass when he screwed up or pissed them off.

 

They were all good people and they took care of Phil and Natasha, so Clint had no problem stepping back and biting his tongue. 

 

He was selfish sometimes, wishing that it was back to the way it had use to be, when it was just Phil, Natasha, and him- back when he had them to himself and didn’t have to fight for their attention- but he understood how this worked. He couldn’t cling to people like he had to Barney- Natasha and Phil weren’t his to keep. They were their own people and he couldn’t expect them to spend their entire life playing his keepers.

 

Honestly, Clint had seen this coming way before the Avengers or Bucky and Pepper- he was used to people he clung to leaving him behind eventually.

 

No one wanted someone who cringed or ran for the hills at the very idea of a relationship.

 

No one wanted someone who tended to disappear the moment things got to serious or someone who was- well he knew he was insecure.

 

He knew all of that and he knew himself enough to know that he wouldn’t be able to change for them- he was too stuck in his ways.

 

No he couldn’t change or be someone good enough for them, but he could be happy for them and make sure they and their lovers were safe and happy.

 

Clint made sure to keep them safe to, even though he tended to distance them all to an extent, he still did his damnedest to keep them all safe and sound.

 

Clint gently pulled the blanket that laid at the bottom of the couch over the two sleeping men and then quietly turned and made his way into the kitchen. He’d let them sleep a little longer-they’d sat up waiting for him the least he could do was leave them be for a bit longer. Those two needed to be mother henned a little sometimes to.

 

Steve was just as bad of a mother hen as Phil and Bruce were- it was annoying and a taxing thing but it proved that he was a good choice for his number one fan boy. It made the mothering and lectures more bearable, when Clint silently reminded himself that it only meant Phil was being protected and cared for.

 

Hopefully, Steve and Bruce would eventually get that Clint didn’t need or want to be mothered- he hadn’t needed it in a very long time and there was no need to start now. He was more than capable of taking care of himself- he only put up with it from Natasha and Phil for so long because he enjoyed the attention from those two. It was fine coming from them because he understood that it was real but the others- they were still to new in his life and he wasn’t entirely sure if they just being were nice to be nice or being nice because of Phil and Natasha asked them to.

 

“Good morning,” came Natasha’s slightly cold voice as Clint walked into the kitchen.

 

Clint froze for a moment; before he ran a hand through his messy hair and gave the red headed assassin a warm smile- he silently hoped that maybe he could play off last night if he ignored the not so happy look Natasha was sending his way. He knew that look; it was the look that eventually led to him getting told off in Russian or him getting a face full of mat in the training room.

 

 “Morning, Nat, your very rude boy toy is in the shower,” Clint said casually before turning to Pepper, “Morning, Pep, are you through with the comics?”

 

Pepper smiled at him over the newspaper she was holding and Clint smiled back, even as he felt Natasha’s gaze on him. Yeah, he wasn’t going to get to play this off but he could always go with plan B- avoid the hell out of it.

 

“Natasha had first dibs,” Pepper teased.

 

Pepper seemed to know exactly what he was doing; he could see that she was trying to help him out a bit even if he knew she didn’t really approve of him missing movie night. Pepper was nice to him but she didn’t like seeing Natasha upset. He wouldn’t push for her help to much- he had it covered.

 

Mostly.

 

“Damn, one of these days I’ll get first dibs,” Clint chuckled with a wink.

 

“Don’t count on it,” Natasha assured before sipping her coffee from her mug, “also just because Bucky made you crawl out of bed and escorted you to the elevator does not make him rude.”

 

“Jarvis, you tattler.”

 

“I felt it would be rude not to announce your arrival for breakfast,” Jarvis countered.

 

“Thank you again Jarvis,” Natasha said, “still my favorite AI of all time.”

 

                “I believe that bring the tally up to twenty-four times this week, Agent Barton,” Jarvis quipped.

 

                “Well I still like DUM-E better,” Clint pouted.

 

                “Noted Agent,” Jarvis answered.

 

Clint quickly turned and headed for the fridge, seizing his moment to hold off Natasha’s on coming wrath a little longer. He smiled as he saw Bruce standing at the stove with his back to them. He could see even with his back to him, that the man was wearing the ‘kiss the chief’ apron that Tony had bought him.

 

“Morning Bruce,” Clint greeted as he passed behind the man, “something smells good and very much bacon free- good thing to, honestly I think I’d barf if I smelt bacon this morning. It’s one of those- veggie days today, I’m in an herbivore state of mind.”

 

“You mean that hangover you’ve medicated this morning with the Tylenol I left on your nightstand has made it one of those veggie days,” Natasha snarked.

 

Clint smirked, “You wound me. Can’t a guy just have veggie days without being accused of having a hangover? Also, I am hundred percent not hungover- I just have a little headache but that could be from trying to cuddle your mean boyfriends metal arm last night. I would like to point out that I may have a head injury from that thing.”

               

“Impossible your head is for too thick for James’s arm to do any damage,” Natasha assured.

 

Clint paused with his hand on the fridge to turn and shoot Natasha a pout, “That was rude.”

               

                “Says the guy who calls the man who suffered through your icy feet last night to make sure you actually managed to sleep mean,” Natasha teased back from behind her coffee cup.

 

                “My feet aren’t that cold at night.”

 

                “As frigid as mother Russia,” Natasha said casually.

 

                “Alright, so the guy is a saint,” Clint huffed as he turned back to the fridge, “still mean though and a blanket hog f.y.i.”

 

                “Tell me about,” Pepper sighed, “the blanket hog thing, I mean.”

 

He heard Bruce chuckle as he yanked open the fridge and dug out a smart water and a jar of the wild cherries he’d stashed there, before closing the door with his foot. He made his way back over toward the island counter top and hoisted himself onto the area that was kept clean and empty just for him.

 

It really was his spot- he always sat there and eventually the others had gotten used to it and stopped shooing him off the island top and just made room for him. It had become a common place thing for him to set there cross legged while everyone else sat at the table.

 

Steve had long since given up on trying to get him to sit with them- it wasn’t going to happen, Clint liked sitting by himself when he ate. He knew no one was going to take his food from him- no one had been dumb enough to try since he was twelve and stabbed one of the circus’s clowns in the hand over trying to take away his food. He hadn’t meant to- it had been a reflex- and he have cried and apologized until the poor guy had ended up feeling like shit for making him cry even though he had been the one who had to have a fork removed from his hand. Needless to say, after that Clint had learned to sit by himself- it was a safer bet that no one would take a fork to the hand that way.

 

“Morning Clint, you know breakfast is almost done. You could save the cherries for later,” Bruce suggested as he turned away from the stove top and gave Clint a look.

 

 Bruce seemed hell bent on getting Clint to lay off the cherries, Clint didn’t really understand why but the guy just kept going back to health risks and the effects of malnutrition. Clint had told him more than once that he made sure to eat enough to keep his weight healthy and when Bruce would go off rambling about stunted growth and all that Clint would roll his eyes and tell him that he was a twenty-six year old and that the stunted growth had pretty much already ran its course.

 

Oh and hadn’t that been fun to admit out loud that yeah, he was short.

 

 “Cherries are perfectly acceptable as a breakfast food, Bruce,” he sighed as he attempted to remove the lid, “plus they taste great with anything. Yeah, these might be on the small side, but hey its fruit so no scurvy for me.”

 

“Clint-”

 

“He’s stubborn Bruce,” Natasha sighed, “there is no talking to him when it comes to the cherries.”

 

“Maybe, but he is about to have breakfast and I really want him to eat a proper meal,” Bruce sighed.

 

Clint fought with the lid a few more minutes before turning his attention to Bruce, “Bruce, I eat proper meals. I eat anything and everything you cook for me, is it really so bad to have cherries on the side with most of those meals?”

 

“Cherries and a few bottles of smart water do not count as a proper meal,” Bruce scolded, “and I think you should expand you nurturance intake without having to do so with cherries on the side.”

 

“I eat more than that,” Clint sighed as he struggled with the lid, “and really what’s wrong with cherries? Hulk likes them just fine.”

 

“Yeah, I know. I was picking little shard of pits out of my teeth the last time the other guy came out. If you’re going to feed him could you at least take out the pits first?”

 

Clint shrugged, “What and lose my arm for making Hulk wait? Bruce, I think you underestimate how much Jade Jaws likes cherries. If I have them in my pack or in a quiver compartment and he smells them there is no taking out the pits- it’s “Hulk want red now” and if “Cupid” doesn’t quickly do as he says, I get to be frisk searched by a giant hungry Hulk. So really, is picking a few pit shards out of your teeth really worth me getting bad touched by Hulk for cherries?”

 

The kitchen was silent for a few moments as Clint went back to fighting the jar lid, he was pretty smug with himself. Maybe that would get Bruce’s mind off of-

 

“Hulk doesn’t just eat cherries though. Also, if you stopped stashing them away everywhere and feeding him them every time you see him, he wouldn’t expect them,” Bruce went on.

 

Natasha and Pepper both laughed at Bruce’s persistence, obviously the good Doctor was more than use to dealing with stubbornness- Tony Stark was his lover after all.

 

Clint groaned and rubbed a hand through his hair, “You’re killing me here. Also, I feel that you have no concern over the fact that Hulk gets grabby when I hide my food from him. Last time I had to yell for an adult. Have you even had the bad touch conversation with the green guy? Should I talk to Tony about getting hand puppets out for this?”

 

“I suggest you remove the pits a bit faster then or you could start eating healthier foods that don’t have pits so you, Hulk, and I can all be happy.”

 

Clint shook his head and looked over at Natasha, “This guy is around Phil and Tony way too much. I mean, Tash, he’s got all the worst qualities from those two! Tony’s snark and Phil’s persistent mother hen mode! This, this is what you and Phil make me put up with.”

 

“He’s only trying to make you eat better,” Natasha chuckled.

 

“I eat just fine,” Clint groaned.

 

“Yeah, birdbrain eats whatever you shove under his beak,” Tony yawned as he came basically sleep walking into the kitchen in sweats and a wife, “plus cherries are good for you right?”

 

“See, the world’s snarkiest cyborg is even vouching for me,” Clint pointed out as he looked back down and refocused on his battle with the cherry jar, “and yeah cherries are good for you. They are fruit.”

               

“Yay, no scurvy for you,” Tony yawned sarcastically- even going as far to add half assed jazz hands.

 

                “See! I told you,” Clint pointed out waving one hand wildly in Tony’s general direction.

 

“I’m not letting a man who lives off of coffee and energy bars sway my concerns over your diet, Clint,” Bruce sighed, “after all if I recall correctly I have to scold him over his eating habits to.”

 

Clint sighed and held the jar out to Bruce, “Promise I’ll go cold turkey on the cherries after this jar.”

 

Bruce sighed as he took it from Clint and opened it, “I don’t think I’m dumb enough to fall for that. You understand you’ve turned me into an enabler don’t you?”

 

Clint happily took the jar back, “Yeah, but you’re the greatest enabler in the world. Hell, I’ll even get you a mug with that written on the side. Tony.”

 

“I’ll make it happen,” he yawned, “right after coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.”

 

He happily fished out a cherry as Pepper chuckled at the exasperated noise that Bruce made when he turned back to the stove. Clint grinned before he quickly began munching away at his fruit, making sure to watch out for the pit. Clint’s grin vanished as a burst of static went through his hearing aids, he jump and reached up to lower the volume a bit.

 

That was odd.

 

“You know your coffee intake is almost as bad as Clint’s cherry addiction,” Pepper sighed.

 

Clint chuckled at the squinty eyed look Tony shot his CEO, “Why is this suddenly about me? Weren’t we lecturing the shorter Avenger over there?”

 

Clint threw a cherry pit at the back on Tony’s head, “I’m only two inches shorter than you.”

 

Tony winced as the pit made contact with the back of his head, “Ouch, hey no throwing things. It’s too early.”

 

“Don’t be such a big baby,” Clint teased, “I’m just building your character.”

 

“By throwing things at me?”

 

“Yes, also I’m still waiting on those new arrows,” Clint reminded.

 

“I um, I’m working on those,” Tony assured sheepishly.

 

“Yeah, I bet-”

 

Clint cut himself off as static burst through his hearing aids again, only loud enough to leave his ears ringing. His hands shot up to his ears grabbing at the two little aids. He let out a long string of curse words as he struggled to take them off, he didn’t even realize that the glass jar of cherries had hit the floor until he heard the faint sound of glass shattering over the static. He managed to get one out of his ear but pause before removing the other as he heard something that made him freeze for a moment.

 

The sound blaring through his hearing aids sounded like some twisted choking voice trying to speak, just like the voice from the subway train.

 

Clint jumped as a pair of hands grabbed him; he looked up as he pulled out his other hearing aid to see Bruce standing there. He looked worried and his lips were moving but Clint couldn’t seem to focus long enough to read them and he couldn’t hear him over the ringing in his ears. He could usually hear out of one ear without his aids in- it was muffled and sounded like someone was speaking into fabric but if he listened closely he could usually hear.

 

He blinked and quickly signed for Bruce to slow down, the man nodded and started over slowly.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

Bruce spoke clearly and made sure to face Clint as he did.

 

“My hearing aids,” Clint signed back, “they picked up some static. Loud static. Sorry.”

 

“It’s okay,” Bruce assured.

 

“I broke the jar. Guess that means no more cherries for now,” Clint said sheepishly.

 

He noticed how Bruce flinched and realized that he must have been speaking louder than he meant, it was hard to get the volume of his voice right when he couldn’t hear it. He apologized for being loud but Bruce quickly brushed it off.

 

“It’s okay. Well this worked in my favor this time,” Bruce teased, “I’m pretty sure that was the last jar in the kitchen.”

 

“Aw jar,” Clint pouted.

 

Bruce just shook his head, “There glass on the floor, let me help you down.”

 

“What about you?”

 

“I’m more careful than you are,” Bruce pointed out.

 

“I’m the personification of careful,” Clint chuckled, “plus I don’t need any white knights Brucie-boy.”

 

Bruce rolled his eyes, “Yeah right, you and careful go together like oil and water.”

 

                “Ouch, you wound me. Listening to you, people might think I’m danger prone or something,” Clint chuckled.

 

“Or something,” he heard Natasha’s muffled voice say..

 

“I can clean it up,” Clint assured as he slipped off the counter top to the side to avoid the glass.

 

He was already grabbing the bigger pieces when Natasha and Pepper came over with a dust pan and wet paper towels. He looked up sheepishly when was he felt someone tapping on his shoulder to find Tony there with a confused look on his face. Clint ran the risk and slip back on one of the hearing aids- it was static free.

 

“What happened,” Tony asked.

 

“My um hearing aids, static feedback,” Clint answered, “this one is fine now, though. I guess I must have caught a different frequency or something. Must have picked up on DUM-E’s frequency again.”

 

“You couldn’t have I made sure to change it,” Tony assured, “might be something else. Hand ‘em over and I’ll see what’s up.”

 

“I will after I get my backups from my room,” Clint assured, “I thought you said that last time you fixed them that they wouldn’t get feedback anymore.”

 

“They shouldn’t after the upgrade I put in them,” Tony assured with a huff at the very idea of his tech being faulty.

 

Clint rolled his eyes,” Right- ow! Son of a bitch.”

 

Clint yanked his hand back from the glass and looked down to see red blooming from his skin. He winced as he ran his thumb over the cut on his palm checking for any glass inside of it.

 

“Are you okay?”

 

Clint gave Pepper a nodded, “Just, cut my hand. Guess Bruce is more careful than me.”

 

“Here let me see it,” Bruce said as he kneeled down next to Clint and took his hand. Clint was quiet as Bruce ran his thumb over the wound- he didn’t flinch this time. He made sure to keep completely still as Bruce looked it over than pressed a wet paper towel to his palm- Clint hadn’t even noticed Bruce leaving to get the paper towel.

 

“There’s no glass in it and it’s not that bad,” Bruce assured, “I’ll put some antibiotic ointment on it and a bandage and you should be fine. Tony can you hand me the little first aid kit out of the junk draw?”

 

“Sure thing.”

 

“If it’s just a little cut there’s no reason to go through all that trouble, Bruce,” Clint assured.

 

“Hush,” Natasha said, “let him take care of it or I’ll hurt you.”

 

“Right, that’s should be all the incentive you need to shut up and suck it up,” Tony teased as he came back and handed Bruce a little box.

 

Clint sighed, “Fine.”

 

He watched as the man carefully went about cleaning and wrapping the cut, he didn’t say anything and didn’t fight. Really it felt nice to have Bruce touching him so gently, to have Tony’s eyes focusing on him- if he wasn’t trained as well as he was Clint sure he would’ve been blushing like an idiot.

 

He sure as hell felt like one.

 

It was stupid, he got jealous as hell when all of the team were taking up all of Natasha and Phil’s attention but when they founded it on him- well, he liked it. He wasn’t an attention seeker or anything- hell the majority of his job was to be unseen, unnoticed- and most of this time that’s how he liked it. Sometimes though, he really liked having someone’s attention on him- had been a performer once. He could remember how nice it was to have positive attention directed toward him and honestly he usually soaked up what little he could get.

 

The first time he’d ever been psyche evaluated, the shrink had reported that he was like that because he was attention starved, probably from neglect or other forms of abuse as a child.

 

Clint had decked the guy pretty hard for that one- not because he was right or wrong- just because really. Honestly, it had had nothing to do with the guy’s verdict on him.

 

That jackass.

 

“There all done,” Bruce said with a smile as he let go of Clint’s hand.

 

Clint took his hand back, pushing the disappointment at how quickly Bruce pulled away to the back of his mind and reminding himself not to be so stupid.

 

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

 

“Hey, Doc, where’s his lollipop,” Tony teased, “I mean he was such a good patient.”

 

Clint rolled his eyes as Bruce let out an exasperated breath. “Tony,” Bruce sighed, “don’t be a headache.”

 

“Huh, so no Doctor kink then?”

 

Clint gave a sly grin, “No, I’m more of the cowgirl in assless chaps kind of guy, Stark.”

 

Clint caught the blush on Bruce’s face as the man stood up; he caught the movement as Natasha shook her head in his general direction.

 

Tony only shot Clint a smirk and crossed his arms, “Huh, you got a thing for assless chaps? I’ll keep that in mind. So were there assless chaps involved with last night’s hook up?”

 

Clint rolled his eyes, pushing away the unease, “Really Stark? No last night was a pretty blond who was at least four years older than me.”

 

“Ah so there’s an age kink,” Tony went on.

 

Clint shook his head, “You know eventually your boyfriends are going to get the wrong idea and toss me out a window because of you and your kink talks.”

 

 

“Not likely,” Pepper laughed as she tossed the rest of the glass away.

 

“Yes, it’s more likely that they would toss Tony first,” Natasha assured.

 

Tony put his hand against his arc reactor, “You ladies wound me.”

 

“No, Pepper made me promise not to do that,” Natasha deadpanned.

 

Clint snickered as he pulled himself up using the counter, “Pepper has you whipped,” he teased.

 

“I did not promise that I wouldn’t hurt you Barton,” Natasha said as her brow quirked.

 

Clint grinned, “Noted.”

 

“So age kink blonde from last night? She got a name,” Tony went on.

 

Clint frowned, “Um- it might have been Tara but I wouldn’t put money on that.”

 

“Aren’t names something that should come first? I mean names could come in handy later when you call them back,” Bruce spoke up.

 

Tony and Clint’s brows quirked and Bruce sighed, “There won’t be any calling her back then.”

 

“No, I don’t usually do the whole call back thing,” Clint answered honestly, “as bad as it sounds I don’t really see the point in it.”

 

“I give you a younger blond version of the old Tony Stark,” Natasha sighed.

 

“Hey,” Tony and Clint protested in union.

 

“Well, at least it’s not a whole swim suit calendar,” Pepper pointed out.

 

“Please, like I’ve got the time for that,” Clint huffed, “sex is kick ass but in small doses and working my way through an entire swim suit calendar would get in the way of archery practice and the more important things in my life.”

 

“Like?”

 

Clint grinned, “Making Natasha and Phil’s life a general delight by gracing them with my presence.”

 

“Glad to see you have your priorities in order,” Bruce said sarcastically.

 

“So humble too,” Tony snorted.

 

Clint chuckled, “Bruce, I’m all about prioritizing. I am a busy guy after all.”

 

“Yeah, we noticed by your lack of attending movie night,” Tony jabbed.

 

 

Clint shrugged and tried to play the little twist in his gut off as something other than shame, “Yeah, about that, I’m really sorry I didn’t show. I mean I know I said I would, I just forgot.”

 

“You mean that you got drunk,” Natasha bluntly stated, “and then forgot.”

 

Clint had the decency to look visibly ashamed at that point, “Yeah, okay, it did go in that order, but really is it a super big deal?”

 

                “What do you mean?”

 

                Clint shrugged and looked back up at Natasha, who had her arms crossed and her gaze locked on him- there was no avoid an answer.

               

                Clint cleared his throat, “What I mean is, movie night is kind of like a- um date thing isn’t it, and normally people don’t’ want awkward third wheels hanging around.”

 

                “Clint-“

 

                He cut Natasha off causally, “I mean isn’t it just a little odd having a spare tire wobbling around when you’ve got a collection of really nice and brand new tires.”

 

                Clint winced at his own analogy- it had sounded better in his head.

 

                “Really? That’s what you’re throwing out there, a bad tire analogy? Wow, you are not a words smith,” Tony said.

 

                Clint shot him a glare, “I literally want to throw the coffee maker at your head. In that tire analogy you are the lumpy flat one that gets knifed by the angry ex-girlfriend.”

 

                “Been there, got the six stitches and cool scar to prove it,” Tony said with a smirk.

 

                “See that’s why we don’t let him out of our sight for too long,” Pepper sighed.

 

                “Clint, you know you aren’t the spare tire,” Bruce spoke up, “movie nights aren’t just ‘date nights’ they are team nights. Why would you think that you aren’t invited?”

 

                “Who isn’t invited to what?”

 

                Clint turned to see Phil and Steve standing at the kitchen entrance, he froze and swallowed the sudden lump that had form in his throat as he watched Phil watching him.

 

                “Baby bird over here thinks he's not invited to movie night on the grounds that he think he’ll be interrupting a giant orgy,” Tony answered.

 

                Clint blushed that time, oh he knew he had, because he caught the smirk on Tony and Natasha’s faces. He reacted purely on instinct and punch Tony in the shoulder- not hard enough to seriously hurt the guy but hard enough to let him know that wasn’t cool.

 

                “I-I didn’t say anything about interrupting a giant,” his words failed him for a moment and waved his hands in the others’ general directions, “that.”

 

                “You wouldn’t be interrupting anything,” Phil assured.

 

                “Yeah, the orgies are usually on the weekends or Wednesdays,” Steve deadpanned causing Tony to almost spit his coffee out everywhere, Bruce laughed so hard he snorted, and Clint- was sure he looked like one of his cherries.

               

                “Great Tony,” Clint sighed, “you completely corrupted the American dream over there.”

 

                “I would tell you that he came like that but I feel like no one but my other three boyfriends would believe me,” Tony sighed.

 

                “Seriously though Clint,” Steve broke in, “you’re always welcomed to movie nights. You are a part of this team.”

 

                “I know, I’ve got the ID card and everything,” Clint half-heartedly joked.

               

                “Clint,” Phil sighed.

               

Clint’s stomach clenched a little as he recognized the tone in Phil’s voice- the one that made the tone in Natasha’s voice pale in comparison.

 

Phil wouldn’t say anything but Clint could tell he was upset about Clint excluding himself from the team and mad about him missing last night for a hook up with another nameless face from a bar. Phil never judged him out loud, but it was obvious what he thought of Clint’s actions- or at least it was to Clint.

 

                “I’m only playing Phil,” Clint quickly assured- well to his ears it sounded like an assurance, “I know I’m a part of the team, I’m not questioning that or anything. I’m just saying, you guys have the whole… relationship thing going on. I just thought that maybe you’d like datey romantic alone time kind of things.”

 

                “Not movie nights,” Phil reaffirmed, “like I said, those are team nights. Those are nights for all of us, just like everything else that dubbed ‘team bonding’. Your invitation for those sort of things is always there for you.”

 

                Clint rubbed the back of his head before giving up and giving a nod, “Right, okay that’s all cleared up then.”

 

                “So to be honest, what time did you stumble in last night anyway?”

 

“Oh not too late,” Clint answered causally, ignoring the butterflies in his stomach. He hated it when Phil was upset or disappointed- he’d rather of just taken a shot to the leg or a tumble from a roof.

 

The whole open invite thing did nothing to settle him.

 

“Huh,” as all he said as he walked over to the coffee maker that Tony had returned to all but guarding at some point. Clint watched as Phil gave the sleepy genius a quick peck on the cheek before grabbing his own mug and filling it with coffee- it made his gut churn.

 

There went the twinge in his chest- throw that on with the butterflies and Clint was pretty sure he was going to be sick. It was so stupid, he didn’t owe Phil any explanations and he didn’t have to feel bad about what he did or missing a stupid movie night. He really shouldn’t even care what the man thought of him- but sure as hell he did.

 

He cared far more than he should have.

 

“I stayed out a little later than I meant to,” he went on letting his mouth get away from him, “really though, I’m sorry about missing movie night.  I’ll catch the next one.”

 

“No worries,” Tony yawned, he apparently caught the tension a bit quicker than the others, “seriously everything is cleared up now and we have like four of those in a week so it’s all good.”

 

Tony was pretty good about catching it- it was sometimes a bad thing because it meant that the genius was reading way too much into how Clint and Phil reacted to each other and Clint knew it might cause some issues down the road. There was nothing there other than friendship and a since of what had been a family like feeling.

 

“Right, thanks,” was all Clint could think to say as he hoisted himself back up on the counter and took the plate of food that Bruce handed over to him. He wasn’t hungry anymore but he knew better than to not eat what Bruce handed him- it would get him another disappointed look from Phil.

 

He had enough of those looks from Phil as it was.

 

               

         >>\-------------->

 

                “He thinks that you are mad at him,” Steve spoke up.

 

                “I’m not,” Phil assured not looking up from his Stark Pad.

 

                “Are you sure? Because, it’s almost like you’ve been a little cold toward him lately,” Steve pointed out.

 

                “I’m not mad at him,” Phil repeated, “I’m worried about him but not mad.”

 

                “Why are you worried about him?”

 

                “He’s been pulling away lately,” Phil answered as he tried to reread the same sentence that he’d been reading for the past half hour, “every time he starts doing this he usually ends up getting himself into trouble and hurt. So no, I’m not mad at him, I’m just worried and frustrated at how he’s acting.”

 

                “Why would he be pulling away? Has something happened recently?”

 

                Phil sighed, “I don’t know. I wish I could answer both of those questions, but I can’t and that’s what I’m really mad about.”

 

                Steve gave a sigh, Phil could hear the storm of emotions behind that sigh. He’d been with the man long enough to know that most things that Steve did were not as simple as they appeared to be. A simple sigh from him could mean hundreds of things without even seeming to be.

 

                “I wish he’d talk to us,” Steve finally admitted, “I wish that he would trust his teammates. We were good for a while, I mean I’d like to think that we were, he was friendly with us and we all got along and then suddenly he’s cold.”

 

                “He does that,” Phil admitted, “I heard it’s a coping mechanism.”

 

                “I don’t like it,” Steve admitted, “Bucky tried it a few times when I first got him to stay in the tower.”

 

                “Yeah, those two are two peas in a pod when it comes to bad coping mechanisms.”

 

                Steve gave a small chuckle and Phil smile at that sound of it. They both set in silence for a few moments- one watching the two assassins spar and the other trying to appear not to be doing the same thing.

 

                “I don’t get why Natasha is using that fighting style,” Steve spoke up suddenly as he watched Clint and Natasha sparring.

 

                Phil looked up from his Stark Pad at Steve- really he hadn’t looked at the screen of the Pad since coming down to the gym, he’d more or less had been using the thing as a cover to watch Clint and Natasha  spar over the top of the device.

               

                Well really, he was watching Clint more than he was watching Natasha- it wasn’t exactly a new development either. Phil was rather bad about his little ‘bird watching’ tendencies as Tony called it, but to be fair he wasn’t the only one guilty of this. Take for example, Steve, who hadn’t once taken his eye off the two sparring assassins since they’d hit the mats- though, Phil was pretty sure that Steve was watching more to make sure that no one got hurt than to admire how flexible Clint was or how good he looked in that purple tank top he’d changed into. Then again, Phil was pretty certain that he had heard a sharp intake of air from Steve’s direction when Clint had put Natasha on the mat with a very impressive show of just how flexible he could be and he knew that he hadn’t been seeing things when he’d caught the faint blush that had covered Steve’s face out of the corner of his eye after Clint had shown off his rather impressive abs while stretching his arms above his head.

 

                “What do you mean?”

 

                Steve looked away from the two assassins and made eye contact with Phil, Steve knew that Phil knew what he meant. Phil did of course, know exactly what Steve was really asking about, he just really didn’t want to say anything about it.

 

                “Phil, that style,” Steve sighed, “it’s used to redirect your opponent’s attacks back at themselves. Basically it’s like just standing there and letting the other person beat themselves up.”

 

                Phil frowned but nodded, “Right.”

 

                “Why is she using it? Why does she always use that on him after he’s pulled one of his all-nighters?”

 

                Phil looked back down at his Stark Pad, he shoulder sagged slightly and his frowned deepened.

 

                “It’s usually the only way we can really get him to let us know how he’s feeling,” Phil answered.

 

                “What?”

 

                “Clint is as bad as Tony use to be about keeping everything bottled up,” Phil explained, “getting him to say that something is wrong or bothering him is nearly impossible. Before Natasha started doing this, Clint would go off and self-destruct. I can’t tell you how many times I had to drag him from the firing range and right up to medical or how many times Natasha and I would have to go looking for him in some back alley or shady bar.”

 

                “So letting him physically beat himself up is a step up from all of that?”

 

                Phil nodded, “Yes it is. I hate it but this way he’s in a controlled environment where Natasha and I can make sure he doesn’t get hurt.”

 

                “This can’t be good for him mentally,” Steve sighed.

 

                “Maybe not, but afterward he’s usually calmer and happier. I hate it, but he just won’t let us help any other way. He shuts us out if we try.”

 

                Steve was silent for a moment, leaving Phil to quietly think about things. It was messed up, this whole system they’d set up without explaining it to Clint.

 

How could they explain it to him really?

 

They moment that Clint understood their reason behind it he’d shut it down and off he’d go bottling everything up again. Phil couldn’t let Clint do that to himself again- he’d come so far and a back slide like that might ruin everything. Sure Clint did have little slips here and there but he was in a much better state than what he had been in when Phil had first met him. Clint smiled now and meant it, he laughed and it was real, and yes Phil knew that Clint was still insecure about a lot of things but he’d become a stronger person.

 

The few times that Clint would still visit the SHEILD mandated physiatrist, the report that followed always spoke of how much improvement Clint had made. Sure, there wasn’t anything detailed about what they talked about but Dr. Odella’s reports always spoke of improvements on Clint part. She seemed to think that Clint still had a ways to go but she constantly gushed on about how proud she was of him.

 

So yeah, maybe this system wasn’t the best but it worked and until they could figure out something better they would stick to it.

 

                “I still don’t like it,” Steve sighed.

 

                “I don’t either, Steve,” Phil admitted.

 

                “Nothing else has ever worked?”

 

                Phil paused, not knowing if he wanted to bring up the other method that had worked for a time. For a while there had been a different method, one that worked and made them all happy, but Phil had fucked that up when he’d gotten stabbed by Loki and played dead for so long.

 

                “Phil?”

 

                “He uses to enjoy physical contact,” Phil answered, “he use to respond best to that.”

 

                “Physical contact?”

 

                Phil smiled, “Clint like to be cuddled.”

 

                “Oh.”

 

                “Yeah, before the whole thing with Loki Clint was a real cuddly sort of guy. Before Clint, I never enjoyed people like that, I always wanted my space and you know Natasha was the same way, but Clint changed all that. He was never clingy or underfoot or anything like that. Clint always made it something simple and calming, like sometimes he’d walk next to you close enough to let his hand brush yours or he’d always stand close enough to let your brush shoulders but never in a way that left you feeling like your personal space was being invaded. When he’d do these things it always felt- comforting, like he was trying to put you at ease and it put him at ease to. He never pushed anything or outright asked for more than that but it made you want to give him more because it felt right. As Natasha and I got closer with Clint it evolved into things like him laying his head on our shoulders when we were sitting around, he’d rest his head in Natasha’s lap while she read, he’d slip his feet under my legs if we were watching tv, just things like that. The sleeping in bed with one of us was always platonic and only really started after I woke up early a few times and caught him sleeping under the bed.”

 

                “He slept under your bed?”

 

                Phil chuckled, “Either under the bed or in the vents. Clint’s sleeping patterns and choice in sleeping places have never been normal, though the first time I found him sleeping in my bed I will be honest, it was the first time his odd sleeping habit nearly gave me a heart attack. I’m just glad that I was too stunned to grab my gun when it happened, I pretty sure he wouldn’t have been very happy about being shot a second time by me.”

 

                “Second time? Wait you’ve shot him before? Why?”

 

                “When I was sent to recruit him, he was not as charming as he is now. Let’s just say he was a less tolerable little shit that he is now and to be fair I made sure to shoot him somewhere that wouldn’t seriously harm him or kill him.”

 

                Steve gave Phil a curious look, anyone else and Phil would’ve kept tight lipped but Steve could get anyone to talk with just that look.

 

                “He has a small scar on his left ass cheek that he named in my honor,” Phil sighed.

 

                Steve snorted and Phil smacked his arm playfully with a small chuckle. Steve pressed a quick kiss to the side of Phil’s head and gently took his hand in his own.

               

                “Does he still sleep under the bed?”

 

                Phil shrugged, “I don’t really know. Natasha and Bucky are the ones who have been helping him with his sleeping issues. I’ve asked a few times it Clint needed any help, but the last time he asked me to stay was after that mission in Washington that ended with him stuck in the medical ward overnight. I’ve asked Natasha about it, but she’s said that Clint says that he’s fine.”

 

                “Do you believe that? I mean, do you really? You’ve seen how he gets sometimes, it’s like he’s dead on his feet. Sure, he never seems to have any problems functioning on missions but what about his health? It can’t be healthy to not sleep.”

 

                “I think he’s being stubborn,” Phil admitted, “and I think that pushing him isn’t going to help anything.”

 

                “Phil-”  

 

“We never had a problem cuddling with Clint, really it made everyone feel better, but then Loki and I screwed all of that up.”

 

                “Phil-”

 

                “If I had come back sooner or just told the truth about being alive he wouldn’t have closed himself off again. No one had to tell me that he felt abandoned, the look he gave me when I came back pretty much told me everything I needed to know. Natasha told me how he’d pretty much brushed off the physical contact thing after that, she told me that she’d had to go back to this method again. I’ve never felt so angry with myself until the week after I came back and tried to hug Clint only to be brushed off for a handshake instead. We’d gone so far with him and I ruined it all just like that.”

 

                “I’d say I understand how you feel, because of everything with Bucky, but I feel like it’s a little deeper with Clint,” Steve admitted, “in a way though, I do get it. It’s not your fault though Phil, I mean yes things should’ve turned out a bit differently but sometimes things just happen and we have to move past it and try to make it better.”

 

                Steve leaned over and gave Phil a chaste kiss on the lips, he gently ran his thumb across the other man’s brow as to wipe away the furrow that marred the skin there. Phil gave a soft smile and kissed Steve back. Phil felt so lucky to be in love with a man like Steve, he felt more than just lucky to be loved back by a man like Steve. Thinking about the other three men who he loved just as much made his heart flutter in his chest and left his mind whirling.

 

                He’s never in his entire life though that he’d ever be this lucky, he was with four men who loved him dearly and who would do anything for him. Knowing that they understood how Phil felt about Clint and how they seemed to feel the same way only made them that much more amazing.

               

                They’d known about Phil’s feelings toward the archer and in time they’d seemed to develop feelings of their own for the man. There had been more than a few discussions about approaching Clint about joining them, but Phil had always told them that he wasn’t sure that it was the best idea. He’d never noticed anything sexual or romantic about the way that Clint interacted with him or the others- Phil wasn’t even entirely sure it Clint was interested in men. Sure Clint would playfully flirt at times with one or all of them but it had never been more than just than that and really, Phil had never really seen Clint with another man.

 

                Phil knew how Clint was with relationships, the archer tended to shy away from them. Natasha had once told him that Clint had never really been in a healthy relationship and because of that he was wary of anything more than a one night stand. Phil had never mentioned the old hospital records he’d found in Clint’s past, but he was pretty sure that Natasha knew more about just how unhealthy some of Clint’s past relationships had been. With Clint’s past experiences in mind, Phil felt like maybe Clint wouldn’t like the thought of being approached in that way- he was afraid that if he admitted to Clint about how he felt that in might make things even worse between them.

 

                He didn’t want Clint to think that Phil just wanted him for purely sexual reasons, he never wanted Clint to think that he had ulterior motives. Phil really did love Clint and he wanted Clint to feel safe whenever he was with him, to feel like he didn’t have anything expected of him. He was terrified that if he approached him that Clint would feel obligated or even that Phil had only wanted one thing out of him.

 

                Clint deserved so much and Phil wanted to give it all to him, he wanted to surround the archer with love and safety but it was so hard to do when Clint shut everyone out or went cold on them. Moving passed things was a very hard thing to do when Clint held so tightly to the hurt left over. Phil knew that Clint held tight to past pains to teach himself lessons about how not to get hurt, but it caused so much damage and kept him so closed off.

                “Phil?”

 

                “Somethings are hard to move pass, Steve,” he sighed.

 

                “Yeah your right, but you should still try. That’s all you really can do it try,” Steve pointed out.

 

                “You’re like a walking inspirational calendar sometimes, you know,” Phil teased.

 

                “So I’ve heard,” Steve snorted, “Tony said if the hero thing ever goes south I should write an inspiration self-help book.”

 

                Phil pulled Steve close and kissed the super soldier, “I love you.”

 

                Steve leaned in and kissed Phil back, “Love you to.”

 

                THWAK.              

 

                Phil and Steve jerked their heads around as a loud thump painful yelp echoed throughout the gym, their eyes came to rest on Clint- who was lying flat and unmoving on his back just outside of the matted area of the sparring area.

               

                “Clint,” Natasha’s slightly panicked voice rang out seeming to snap everyone into action.

 

                Steve was up in second and Phil was right at his heels, both men were at Clint’s side right about the time that their archer had managed to hoist himself up onto his elbows. Phil couldn’t help but notice the slightly glazed over look that seemed to momentarily wash over Clint’s eyes before the man shook it away.

 

                “Ouch,” Phil heard Clint grumble.

 

                “Clint are you alright,” Steve asked with a slight pitch of worry in his tone as he kneeled next to the man.

 

                Clint nodded as he say up and rubbed at the back of his head, “I’m good. I just… tripped, I guess.”

 

                “It looked like something threw you off balance pretty bad,” Natasha pointed out as she pulled Clint’s head forward to examine the back of it, “I didn’t realize that you weren’t going to catch yourself until after you’d already committed to the flip. I would’ve tried to catch you if I had known you were about to launch yourself right onto the unmated area.”

 

                Phil could all too clearly hear the guilt and worry in Natasha’s voice- he knew that to anyone else it would’ve sounded scolding or uncaring, but he and Clint knew the woman to well.

 

                “It’s alright Nat,” Clint assured with a chuckle as he let Natasha look over the back of his head for injuries, “I just lost my center of gravity is all. I thought I had it, guess I didn’t.”

 

                “What threw you off?”

 

                Clint looked up at Steve, Phil saw that Clint was really taking in just how close that he and Steve was sitting to him for the first time, there was a slight blush on Clint’s face that had Phil’s stomach flip-flopping for some reason.

 

                “I-uh, you’re going to laugh, but I think I put on a few pounds without realizing it,” Clint answered sheepishly, “I haven’t done any flips like that in a while, so maybe all that good food Bruce has been feeding me has finally caught with me.”

 

                Phil gave Clint a look over, he really couldn’t see where those few pounds would be at. The only weight on Clint was from muscle.

 

                “I don’t think so,” Steve assured, “if anything you could use a few more pounds.”

 

                “That’s what I’ve been telling him,” Natasha agreed as Clint waved her off him, “he’s all muscle and bone.”

 

                “Phil,” Clint playfully pouted, “Natasha and Steve are being mean.”

 

                “And how is that new,” Phil deadpanned as he held his hand out to help Clint to his feet.

 

                Clint took his hand with a smile and chuckled, “I see you’re point.”

 

                “You are okay though, right,” Phil asked as he helped the archer to his feet.

 

                Clint smiled, “I’m fine, Phil. Just lost my footing or something. No head injuries or anything, right Nurse Tasha?”

 

                Natasha place her hands on her hips, “No head injuries. No new damage to report.”

 

                “See, I’m all good, sure the nursing staff’s bedside manner sucks,” Clint teased at Natasha, “but other than that I’m still amazing as always.”

 

                Phil sighed, “Alright, but for future reference, place make sure that if you are going to land on you head that you do so on the matted area of the sparring area.”

 

                Clint grinned, “No promises but I will make a strong effort, boss man.”

 

                “That’s all I ask,” Phil sighed.

 

                “What are we asking of Clint?”

 

                Everyone turned to find Thor entering the gym with Bucky and Lucky following behind him.

 

                “Not to land on hard place with his head,” Steve answered.

 

                “I believe that would be as the old saying goes, like asking a fish not to swim,” Thor chuckled.

 

                “Oh the Norse God, has jokes,” Clint called out as he looked around Steve.

 

                “Aye, I also have your pet, who has been attempting to locate you all morning,” Thor chuckled, “it would seem he is displeased to not have been given his ‘morning belly rubs’ as he put it and he was also rather concerned that you might have been spirited away by a group of men that he called ‘track suit mafia?”

 

                “Isn’t that all speak thing just the greatest? I got to witness a full grown man try and explain to Lucky here, that his human wasn’t kidnapped by something called the Track Suit Mafia?”

 

                “Aw Lucky,” Clint sighed, “it was like maybe one time and I totally had it under control.”

 

                Phil caught Natasha giving Clint a look that mirrored his own, they’d agreed a while ago not to overly pry in Clint’s life outside of the Avengers and they had actually stood by that agreement….for about a year. It had taken getting a call about a disturbance at Clint’s apartment building and Clint suddenly deciding to become best buddies with Wade Wilson for the both of them to step in.

 

                The Track Suit Mafia was no longer an issue…. Wilson had been given a spar key to Clint’s apartment and apparently enjoyed sending Clint strange souvenirs whenever he left the country and in a few odd cases both the galaxy this plain of existence.

 

                Lucky’s excited bark and the clicking of his nails against the gym’s flooring pulled Phil’s attention back to the one eyed dog who seemed to love Clint more than anything in the world.

 

                Phil heard Steve laugh at the little uncoordinated happy dance that the four legged creature seemed to be doing. He did the same dance when someone said pizza.

               

                “Funny, I think I’ve seen Tony and Clint do that same dance when someone starts a fresh pot of coffee,” Natasha teased.

 

Clint rolled his eyes at Natasha and then gave a whistle and excitedly called out for Lucky, the dog all but tripped over himself in excitement as he raced over to Clint. Steve was almost taken out at the knees as a result when the dog zigzagged between his legs to get to his owner, it made Phil chuckle and Bucky out right laugh. Once the seemingly minor obstacle of Steve’s legs were out of his way, Lucky basically launched himself into Clint’s awaiting arms and let out the excited whines and yips that had Clint grinning and laughing.

 

                “Hey buddy,” Clint cooed excitedly as he let the oversized wannabe lap dog wriggling happily in his arms and drench him in sloppy kisses, “who’s my good boy! You miss me last night? Heard you decided to steal Buck’s spot. Look at you, stealing the ex-winter soldier’s girlfriends right under his nose. You’re my little badass. Yes you are.”

 

                “I hate you,” Bucky sighed with no heat in his voice, “seriously I’m considering dangling you from the top on this building.”

               

                “Aw, Lucky did you hear that? Bucky is being a grumpy old man, I fully support you pissing in his slippers. Yes I do.”

 

                “Did I say dangle? I meant drop, I’m doing to drop you off the top of this building.”

 

                “Now dear, don’t be silly,” Natasha playfully scolded, “you know he’ll just bounce.”

 

                “Like a fucking bouncy ball,” Clint agreed as Lucky licked at his cheek happily, “and don’t you forget it.”

 

                “Let’s not test that theory, please,” Steve said as he turned and gave the wriggling mutt in Clint’s arms a scratch behind his ears, “I don’t think Lucky or I would enjoy that.”

 

                Lucky barked happily, his leg twitching spastically as Steve’s fingers worked their magic, Clint’s grin only widened and Phil felt his heart flutter in his chest. He loved seeing Clint smile like that- the man’s smile could brighten a room like no other. Tony had once told Phil that Clint had a mouth that could make a Nun rethink her life choices and a smile that would make a sinner hit his knees and pray. Phil couldn’t help but agree with his boyfriend’s verdict on both of those things.

 

                “I don’t think that Lucky would mind too much,” Clint chuckled, “I swear he’d toss me to the side in a second if it meant getting to have Steve pet him all the time.”

 

                Phil felt his chest tighten at those words, he noticed the change in the room instantly, he looked over to see that the other had been effected by those words as well. They each seemed equal parts uneasy and upset at such words. Phil understood that they each understood that Clint’s words held more than just a playful joke to them.

 

                Clint seemed to not notice, either that or pretended not to, the effects that his words had on the others. The archer was still petting and cooing Lucky.

 

                “I do not agree,” Thor spoke up, “Lucky is extremely unbearable when he is not at your side. I do not believe any amount of petting from Steve could change that.”

 

                Clint finally looked up, he smirk softened to a smile and then went away completely when he caught sight of the others’ face.

 

                “What’s with those looks?”

 

                “It’s nothing,” Natasha sighed, “just yet another example of you putting your foot in your mouth.”

 

                “Huh?”

 

                “Nothing,” Natasha sighed waving him off, “it’s nothing. Are you sure that you are okay? You did take a rather hard fall.”

 

                Clint nodded, “I’m fine. I’m fine. My neck if a little tender but it felt like that before the fall so it’s nothing.”

 

                “Are you sure?”

 

                Clint rolled his eyes and sighed in annoyance, “I’m fine. Seriously, its nothing.”

 

                Phil stepped into as Natasha went to push again, “Alright, you know your own body. However, maybe we should stop the sparring for today, just to be safe.”

 

                Clint’s brow furrowed, “What? Come on, Phil, it’s nothing. You just said that I know my own body.”

 

                “That’s exactly why I’m asking you to hold back on the sparring- I’ve seen how hard you push yourself. If it’s just a simple sore neck then just take it easy today and tomorrow you’ll be fine. There’s no need to cause more damage than need be to a simple injury.”

 

                Phil could see the annoyance building on Clint’s face, he prepared for an argument but Jarvis’s voice saved him from that fate.

 

                “Agent Coulson,” Jarvis spoke up, “Agent Hill and Sitwell are requesting your presence in the meeting room. Ms. Potts requests your presence before Sir makes an appearance.”

 

                Phil sighed, “Right. Let them know that I’m on my way.”

               

                “Phil,” Clint protested.

 

                “I’m serious Clint,” Phil sighed, “lay off the training. Go get caught up on Dog Cops or something. I know Tony is dying to talk with you about the latest episode and its taking an act of God to keep Thor from leaking spoilers.”

 

                “I am sorry, Phillip,” Thor sighed, “I am simply excited over the latest turn of events and wish to talk with Clint about them.”

 

                Phil gave the Thunderer a smile, “I know, but Clint would be very upset if you did before he got to watch it himself.”

 

                “Fine,” Clint huffed, “I’ll just go be unproductive all day.”

 

                “That’s all I ask,” Phil sighed as he turned and head for the elevator.

 

 

 

                 >>\-------------->

 

                Clint rolled his eyes at Phil’s retreating form but didn’t speak up until he was certain that the man was gone. He turned to Natasha but was instantly shut down before he could even ask her to go another round with him.

 

                “No Clint,” she said as she headed for the locker room, “go get cleaned up and rest. Phil doesn’t ask these things of you just to hear himself talk, you know.”

 

                “Nat,” Clint whined, “come on! I’m fine and-”

 

                “Go rest,” she said before disappearing into the locker room.

               

                She left no room for any further discussion with her on the matter.

 

                Clint sighed and gave the other three men a look, Thor gave a sheepishly look, Steve crossed his arms over his chest and cocked an eyebrow at him, and Bucky simply shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t even need to ask to know that he’d get no leeway from these three- he was pretty sure they’d tattle on him if he so much as eyed one of the weight benches.

 

                “Really you guys?”

 

                “Going by those bags under your eyes, maybe a little non-productivity would do you some good,” Bucky spoke up.

 

                “I slept last night,” Clint protested.

 

                “Five hours does not count as a healthy amount of sleep,” Bucky pointed out.

 

                “He’s right,” Steve agreed, “a day off won’t kill you.”

 

                “Fine, if you three will excuse me I’m going to go to my room because apparently Mother Coulson and his clucking hens have decided that despite the fact that I am a grown man, that I can still be sent to my room like a child when I misbehave. Come on Lucky.”

 

                Clint pushed stomped past the three slightly stunned men and headed for the elevators, Lucky followed after him with a whine. The archer was so annoyed by the turn of events that he didn’t think about how he was acting as he jabbed the call button for the elevator. His annoyance didn’t waver until he stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for his floor. He rubbed absent mindedly at his neck- the soreness there throbbed dully in beat with the headache pounding away behind his temples- and then leaned back against the shiny elevator wall.

 

                Lucky gave a little whine, bring Clint’s attention to him, the man nodded and squatted next to the one eyed dog, “Yeah, I know. I was a dick.”

 

                Lucky yipped and Clint chuckled as he scratched behind the mutt’s ears, “I’d like to think that was you telling me that I’m not a dick and I was completely right but I know better and I also know that you spend too much time with Katie Kate.”

 

                Lucky let out another happy sound, Clint winced this time, his head throbbed at the sound but he still managed to give Lucky a smile and patted his head as he stood back up. With a groan, Clint took out his hearing aids and stuck them in his pocket, then rubbed at his pounding temples.

 

“What the hell,” he said with a shrug, “today we are going to be lazy, Lucky. Take nice long bubble bath, pig out on left over pizza, and catch up on some tv- probably pop a few more Tylenol for good measure. Might as well, right? You and I both know that Nat and Phil have probably already talked with Jarvis about tattling on me.”

 

Clint closed his eyes and rubbed at his neck again- as he stood there waiting to reach his floor with is eyes closed he missed seeing that Lucky was starring up at a single moth fluttering above them.

 

>>\-------------->

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited and Reposted: 3/5/16


	4. I see her when I sleep...

                                                                          >>\-------------->

 

               

                As Phil entered the conference room he was greeted by the rather grim faces of not only Agent Hill and Sitwell, but also Pepper- and within seconds he was also met with the less than happy voices of Tony Stark and Nick Fury.

 

He noticed that Tony not only had Nick pulled up on the holo-screen but he also had report files and what looked like crime scene photos scattered across the holo- screen as well. Phil found this odd considering that Tony mostly kept his snooping to the more technical side of SHEILD and left these types of things a lone.

 

                “You didn’t think that we needed to know about this!”

 

                Phil’s ears perked up, and he gave Hill a questioning look, she simply averted her gaze- Phil took that as a bad sign. It became worse when he glanced over to Sitwell and got the same reaction.

 

                “We had it covered Stark and it was and is SHEILD business,” Fury snapped drawing Phil’s eyes back to the two arguing men, “there was nothing leading us to believe that the Avengers had anything to do with this or needed to be involved.”

 

                “Yeah, I can see how well you have it covered, Fury,” Tony scoffed, “remind me what’s the body count again?”

 

                Phil was jerked from his silent curiosity by those two words.

 

                “Body count?”

 

                All eyes locked onto Phil as he spoke up, if the body count thing hadn’t put him on edge the range of looks focused on him at the moment sure as hell did. It didn’t take a genius to realize that something was very wrong here, and that’s not even taking into account the crime scene photos. Hill’s eyes held a look of shame and he caught the look of sheepish guilt momentarily flash across Sitwell’s face- Phil felt his stomach clench and his hackles raise.

 

                They’d kept something from him.

 

                “Agent Coulson,” Fury greet in a grim tone.

 

                It wasn’t visible to most, but Phil had been friends with Nick long before the man had become head of SHEILD, he saw the look on Nick’s face and he knew exactly what it meant.

 

                “Director Fury,” Phil greeted back.

 

                It meant that someone had caught Nick in a lie, a lie that he’d used to hide something from Phil.

 

                “Did you know about this shit,” Tony broke in without hesitation in true Tony Stark fashion, “because if so and you didn’t think telling us was important than I would like to be the first to tell you that you’re a dick and your ass is sleeping on the couch for at least a year. Also, I just might punch you in the face.”

 

                “Tony, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Mind filling me in here before you call me a dick, exile me to the couch, or punch me in the face?”

 

                 “Director Douchebag and his mindless minions have failed to inform us that there is a sword wielding serial killer, with an unhealthy obsession for our residential archer, currently on the prowl for said archer.”

 

                Phil’s stomach dropped to the floor, he felt sick and more than a little angry. He shot a look toward Nick, the look he got back assured him that what Tony was saying was indeed true and not something he’d misunderstood.

 

                “Nick,” Phil said in a low warning tone that had Hill standing a little straighter and Sitwell wincing.

 

                “Oh and get this,” Tony went on not noticing the tone in Phil’s voice, “Apparently they have no clue where he’s at. Yeah, they’ve lost his trail and guess where they lost it at- go ahead guess.”

 

                “Tony,” Pepper sighed.

 

                Phil could tell just from Pepper’s voice that she wasn’t so much scolding Tony as trying to calm him without overtly showing anyone that he needed to be calmed.

 

                Phil could easily see the way Tony’s hand shook slightly with growing anxiety and frustration- worry and concern were two feeling Tony hid with sarcasm and anger. Tony could hide it pretty well, but Phil knew him too well, Tony was worried about Clint. The Ironman didn’t handle those he cared about being placed in danger and though Tony tried to play it off, Phil knew that Tony cared a lot about their archer.

               

                “I’m going to go out on a limb and say here in New York,” Phil answered as his eyes darted over and locked with agent Sitwell and agent Hill, both of whom managed to look ashamed of themselves. Phil took one glance at Fury and noticed that he didn’t share their sense of shame, the Director’s face was blank and that only fueled Phil’s anger that much more.

 

                “Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner,” Tony said sarcastically as he shot Fury a glare that would have left any other man trembling.

 

                “Coulson-” agent Sitwell started only to be interrupted by Phil.

 

                “Give me a sitrep,” Phil demanded in a deadly calm tone, “and make sure not to leave anything out. Any redactions and I’ll make sure to have Tony take a look into your files to find any information that I need, and who knows what secrets he might end up digging up in the process. Wouldn’t want that now would we?”

 

                “Agent Coulson,” Fury warned.

 

                “Director Fury,” Coulson replied calmly.

 

                The room fell into a tense silence as the two men glared each other down. It was never a good thing when these two men were at all odds.

 

                “The Swordsman,” Sitwell spoke up once the tension became too much to handle, “as you know he was catatonic and locked up in a SHEILD maximum security medical facility. During the time when Agent Barton was taken by Loki, he woke up and somehow managed to escape. No one knows how he managed to do this while still being in a weak state from waking up but it was reported that during his escape he killed four of the medical staff that attended to him and then killed six agents who were attempting to apprehend him.”

               

                “How is he able to escape, and how did he manage to kill these agents?”

 

                Sitwell stiffened for a moment before clearing his throat and answering, “As for how he was able to escape we don’t know, no one has been able to figure it out. Also how he managed to kill these agents is a mystery, but we do know how he killed them and it’s not pleasant.”

 

                Phil paused and broke his eye contact with Fury long enough to look over it Sitwell, “What you mean?”

 

                “Our medical coroner reported that each agent’s neck was snapped, and what little feed we have of the incident it shows that he did it all with his bare hands.”

               

                Phil’s eyes grew wide and his blood ran cold in his veins. That was impossible the swordsman had been a catatonic state for years, to think that he was able to kill that many people with his bare hands by snapping their neck just couldn’t be possible.

 

Someone had to have helped him, there had to be someone on the inside that he assisted in his escape, but who. Phil had handpicked each individual working in the small facility that held swordsman, he had done this with the knowledge that not a single soul would ever let that man escape. Could even tricked? Could one of the staff had been working with swordsman all along, just biding their time until shield was too distracted to do anything, had the men really done it on his own?

 

                “He snapped their necks with his bare hands?”

 

                “More specifically,” Hill broke in, “he turned their heads completely around not only snapping their necks but completely severing the connection of their heads to their spinal cords. There were also a few bodies that looked as if he’d twisted their limbs around in the same way he done to their heads.”

 

                Pepper gasped in horror, Phil turned to see her covering her mouth with her hand and that her face had taken on a pale color. Phil felt guilty for having to expose Pepper such images, one glance over to Tony assured him that his lover felt the same thing.

 

                “Murder and mutilation? The Swordsman hasn’t done anything like this in the past,” Phil pointed out, “do you know what may have caused this sudden actions?”

 

                “Not as of yet,” Hill answered, “our teams have yet to pin point any triggers or reasoning that may have caused this. As far as we know, he just did this all on a whim.”

 

               

                “A whim? I don’t think this was done on a whim,” Tony huffed.

 

“I don’t know Tony, sometimes people just-”

 

“Pepper, someone doesn’t just do this,” Tony said waving his hand at the crime scene photos for emphasis, “on a whim. He’s got to have a few screws loose and some really bad plans for the future rattling around in his psychotic melon. This is a build up to something worse, not just a random murderous mutilation.”

 

Phil knew that Tony was right, he just didn’t know what he was right about. Had the swordsman truly lost his mind? And if so what did that mean frequent in the avengers?

 

Phil thought better of it and decided that he didn’t want to agree with Tony out loud, for the moment he wanted to focus on the problem at hand and trying to figure out a solution, but first he needed all the information that he could get.

 

“We can focus on the whys later, Tony. What I want to focus on is where. Where is he, where is he going, where has he been, and where he’s gotten this unnatural strength,” Phil said.

 

                “He’s been avoiding capture and has kept off our radar for the most part. We’ve always show up to late to catch him, at first we thought that he had an accomplice but there hasn’t been any indication of that based off of what little we’ve been able to turn up,” Sitwell answered, “he’s on his own and that’s about the most solid piece of evidence that we currently have.”

 

                “No leads on his sudden inhuman strength?”

 

                “I’d say he’s really been eating his greens, considering the detached spinal cords,” Tony supplied.

 

                “Really Tony,” Pepper grumbled.

 

                “There’s got to be something else,” Phil asked ignoring the two of them.

 

                “What do you mean? That’s about it-”

 

                “I’m not stupid, Jasper,” Phil growled, “and right not I’m not very patient.”

 

                Fury was the one who spoke up next, his face was grim and it left Coulson clenching his jaws to keep from snapping at the man. He knew this wasn’t going to be good, he also knew this was going to confirm everything that he was quietly dreading to hear.

 

                “The last location that he attacked, he left a message,” Fury explained, “he wrote it on the walls in the blood of one of the agents that he killed.”

 

                “What was the message, Nick?”

 

                “It said, ‘He’s mine. Given the Swordsman’s past, we are almost certain that the ‘him’ is Agent Barton. Up until this point we didn’t believe that he was after Agent Barton, but after we took into account the message we went back and looked over the locations that he attacked.”

 

                “What else?”

 

                “Each location, was a safe house that Barton was station at,” Fury answered.

 

                “So there is no doubt that he’s after Clint,” Phil sighed.

 

                “We planned on bringing this to you sooner,” Hill spoke up, “but-”

 

                “I had Jarvis running a program that would alert me if the name of anyone on our team popped up on any active SHEILD files,” Tony broke in, “Clint’s name popped up and I got an eye full of mutilated corpses. In short, Fury had two choices, tell the truth or let me tell the truth for him. That would be the reason it was finally brought to us.”

 

                “So basically you’re telling me his hand was forced,” Coulson said in annoyance.

 

                “It would seem so,” here he huffed, “apparently your boyfriend likes to snoop or he doesn’t belong.”

 

                “Right now, I’m thankful for that,” Phil said as he glanced over to Tony with a small smile on his face.

 

                “Nobody messes with the Avengers,” Tony said with a brief smile, “not while I’m around.”

 

                “I take it that the Avengers will now be involved with the ongoing investigation as well as the manhunt,” Fury sighed.

 

                Phil paused before answering, of course, he is involved now, of course, _they_ would be involved now, but then there was Clint.

 

Phil knew that involving Clint would open a door to the archer’s traumatic past that the man would rather have stayed shut. Having Clint involved could destroy all the progress the man had made. Could he really put Clint through that?

 

                No, he couldn’t do that to Clint.

 

                “Not all of the Avengers,” Phil answered.

 

                “What! Phil, what you mean not all the Avengers,” Tony asked, “this isn’t something we need to keep quiet. We need to tell the others and warn Clint-“

 

                “No Tony,” Phil snapped, “we can’t drag Clint through this again. I can’t drag him through this again. He’s been through too much lately I can add this to it. Listen, just go with me on this and don’t argue.”

 

                Room was quiet for a moment after Phil’s outburst no one spoke, they were too stunned to speak. Phil looked over to find Tony staring at him in disbelief and anger, he gave him a weak look silently praying that Tony would understand that this wasn’t something that they need to talk about in the room at the moment and that he would explain things to them later.

 

                Tony seemed to accept this, not willingly, but he let it go. He seemed to understand that he wasn’t gaining anything else here at the moment and that it was best just let this one go. Though Phil could see the look in his eyes, he knew later he would have to explain, that keeping it all quiet wouldn’t be an option.

 

                “Agent Coulson?”

 

                Phil looked up to see agent Hill looking at him, he gave a small sigh slipped into Agent Coulson mode.

 

“I don’t all the Avengers and on this,” Phil said again with more authority in his voice.

 

“Meaning you don’t want anyone to tell agent Barton,” Fury stated.

 

“That’s right,” Phil answered, “I don’t want any of this getting back to Agent Barton. The Avengers will be part of this, all of us except Clint, for his well-being no one well tell him about the circumstances. I feel like putting him through this would be very detrimental to his mental health, if it comes to the point that we have to tell him, or if his life is in immediate danger I’ll be the one to explain things to him- no one else. I’ll take the heat from him, but until then this stays quiet. Do I have your word?”

 

Phil looked towards the other occupants of the room, his gaze fell on each one until he had a nod or an affirmation that no one would tell Clint anything.

 

“Understood agent, Colson, I’ accept your terms” Fury said, “but I need you to understand that if we are going into this together, that you and your team will have to play by my rules. This isn’t some God taking over the world or aliens blowing up half of New York, this is a madman on the loose who seems to understand how to disappear and has no problem killing anyone who gets in his way. We go into this with the mindset of discretion and the understanding that we have to communicate. We have to be on the same page if we want to keep Agent Barton safe and stop this madman from killing anyone else.”

 

“So basically we have to play nice with SHEILD to keep our resident Robin Hood safely in the dark,” Tony sighed.

 

“Yes Stark, that’s basically what I’m saying,” Fury huffed.

 

                “Fine, for Clint I can do that,” Tony growled back, “but once we catch this madman that you guys let go, don’t expect this again. I don’t like working with lying liars who lie.”

 

                “Duly noted Stark. Agent Hill, have the evidence files and any other information sent over to the tower. Agent Coulson, Sitwell and Hill will be on call to assist, they’ve been working on the case from the start.”

 

                Phil nodded and looked at the two agents, “I want as much information as you can give me, any files and any evidence you needs to be brought to the tower. We’ll get to work on it right away.”

 

                “I expect to be updated on any progress on the case,” Fury stated.

 

                “Yeah right,” Tony huffed.

 

                “Yes sir,” Phil answered, “I’m sure Agent Sitwell and Agent Hill will keep you up to date on all of the happenings.”

 

                “Good luck Agents,” and with that the Holo-Fury blinked out of existence.

 

                “Phil-“

 

                “Not now Tony,” Phil said, “just wait. I’ll explain everything soon, just trust me on this.”

 

                “Fine,” Tony huffed as he stomped out of the room.

 

                Phil sighed and turned toward Pepper, she gave him a soft look.

 

                “Let him cool off,” Pepper said.

 

                “Right,” Phil sighed knowing she was right but also knowing that Tony’s anger was justified.

 

                He turned back to the two people he thought of as his friends and slipped on his Agent face – as Tony and Clint called it.

 

                “I’ll need all the files brought over ASAP,” Phil turned to Pepper, “Can you have things set up for the files to be brought in without alerting Clint?”

 

                Pepper nodded, “I can. I’ll have a room set up and any files that can’t be sent over electronically can be placed in there.”

 

                “We’ll get on that now, Coulson,” Hill assured.

 

                The two agents quickly exited the room, leaving Pepper and Phil alone.

 

                “Thank you, Pepper,” Phil spoke up as his Agent Coulson persona slipped away, “I know you probably aren’t exactly thrilled about how I’m going about this, but please believe me when I say this is for the best.”

 

                Pepper sighed, “I don’t agree with you but…but I understand. I would do the same for the people I cared about. However, I do expect a full explanation and I assure you that Tony expects the same and then some. Now, if you’ll excuse me I have work to do, there’s files to sneak in and a company I have to run.”

 

                Pepper gave Phil’s cheek a quick peck and then left- leaving Phil alone with his thoughts and the fading echo of her heels. He turned back to the holo- screen and looked at the pictures that were still being shown, he clenched his hands into fists as anger burned through him.

 

                “I won’t let you hurt Clint again,” he growled and then closed the programs completely.

 

 

               

                                                                                                              >>\-------------->

               

 

Clint sighed as he relaxed into the warm water, his entire bathroom was covered in steam giving the room an almost ethereal look to it. The lights were dim, it smelt like white rose incense throughout the entire room, and there was a blissful silence.

 

It was a silence that Clint could enjoy- one that didn’t leave him twitchy and tense. This was one of the few silence that Clint could wholeheartedly relax with and not have to worry about not hearing something important. Jarvis had his back and Clint knew that the AI wouldn’t let him down- annoy and nag him to death but never let him down.

 

The AI, as it were, had experience with twitchy dangerous men and was more or less overqualified to play look out.

               

                Years living with Tony had trained him well.

 

                Clint had nothing to worry about, nothing to be on guard over, and nothing to keep an ear out for. He felt more relaxed than he had in a while, warm baths did that for him sometimes- they calmed him down and cleared his head. Natasha had been the one to turn him onto this little trick after they’d finished up a mission in Japan. He’d been strung tighter than his own bow string afterward and she’d dragged him to a local hot spring and the rest was history.

 

After the morning and well night, that he’d had Clint had felt that he deserved a nice late afternoon soak- after all he’d had nothing better to do, thanks to Phil. Going to the archery range or hanging out in the communal floor’s living room were both out of the question- both places ran the risk of Natasha or Phil cornering him.  With those two options shot to hell, Clint had spent most of the day catching up on TV, napping, and overall just being lazy- living with the Avengers might have been making him a bit soft.

 

Clint wasn’t entirely sure he liked the idea of getting soft- maybe he needed to go back to his apartment for a while.

 

Yes, okay, he did have a bed equally as cloud-like as the one he had here but his bath tub wasn’t big enough for his entire lower body to be submerged all at once- so there was that.

 

“Well,” Clint sighed, “a boring lazy day is better than fighting giant slugs in Central Park.”

 

Yeah, Clint’s life featured things like that since he’d joined the Avengers. It could almost make a person miss doing undercover operations in not so nice parts of the world and laying on a rooftop for six hours in freezing cold rain just to get a good angle on a target.

               

Almost.

 

Then again, at least with undercover operations and toughing it out of rooftops he didn’t have to keep himself up in his room to hide from Natasha and Phil. Clint huffed and sunk even lower in the tub, leaving only from his nose up above the water, and tried to pretend that he didn’t momentarily consider taking an out of country solo mission from Fury just to run away from a scolding from his two friends.

 

A three week mission seemed like a reasonable amount of time to hide from Phil’s looks and Natasha’s violently concerned sparring matches in the gym.

 

Of course, he didn’t doubt for a second that Natasha would find him and beat his ass before dragging him back to the Tower by his ear.

 

She’d done it before- dragging him back by his ear- but they didn’t talk about Amsterdam and they sure as hell didn’t bring out the photos.

 

Clint shivered in horror at the very idea of Tony seeing ‘The Pictures.’

 

So yeah, running was out of the question, so staying in his room like a kid who knew his parents were mad was his only real option- because Clint was not too good at being a real adult or dealing with his emotions or using his words.

 

Still it didn’t mean he enjoyed it- well the bath part he did but he was starting to get bored and maybe his hands were getting a little too pruned as well. Clint let his finger break the surface of the water and made a face at his overly pruned fingers. He wiggled them, causing more ripples in the water, then pulled himself up and let his arms rest of the sides of the tub. His right arms dangled over the side dripping tiny puddled onto the bathroom floor.

 

Clint leaned his head back and stared up at the bathroom ceiling, let his eyes rest on an odd spot on the ceiling before he let his eyes close and relaxed his body back against the tub. He took a deep breath and let himself take in the silence for a moment before closing his eyes and sighing softly.

 

His intentions of getting out of the tub seemed to have drifted away as he continued to lazily sit in the warm water. A yawn slipped past Clint’s lips and he felt himself drifting off a bit- he needed to get out soon or risk falling asleep and possibly drowning.

 

Oh god, that would be embarrassing as hell. He could see it now, Steve bursting through his door in full Captain America mode to rescue him from drowning in a shallow tub of water. It was equal parts horrifying and arousing, there was the sexy fantasy of mouth to mouth with Steve and there was the actuality of naked and half drowned mouth to mouth with Steve.

 

Clint had nearly drowned a few times in his life and CPR was not so much sexy as it was painful with a side of a possible broken bones- call is sad and slightly pathetic but the idea of a super soldier breaking bones completely ruined the nice sexy fantasy of a water drenched Steve and playing tongue hockey with said drenched Steve.

 

Clint huffed at his own thoughts, quietly scolding himself for even thinking about Steve like that in the first place. The man was Phil’s boyfriend, he had three other boyfriends, he was Clint’s friend and teammates, and he was an American icon- Clint shouldn’t be mentally constructing bad porno scenes with Steve and himself.

 

Bad Hawkeye.

 

Clint rubbed a damp hand over his face and groaned.

 

A sudden slight twinge at the back of Clint’s neck snapped his dirty and self-deprecating mind out of its distracting thoughts, he winced at the painful ache and reached back to rub it away. It was as he was working out what felt like a knot that he noticed that the water had gotten cold.

 

He hadn’t even noticed that the tub had gone cold- obviously, he’d been a little too lost in thought for his own good. Clint gave a shiver at just how cold the water had gotten, and decided it really was time to get out this time. Clint slipped out of the tub and pulled the stopper, he grabbed one of the ridiculously overly plush (and purple) towels that Tony had stocked his bathroom with and wrapped it around his waist. As he grabbed a second on to dry his hair with, he caught the slightest of movements out of the corner of his eye- as he turned to look he was greeted with the sight of two moths fluttering around in the corner of the bathroom.

 

A frown pulled at Clint’s face for a moment, it looked like that was a slowly spreading wet spot on the wall- it reminded him of the bathroom walls of those cheap and crappy motel rooms that he’d stay in back in the day. He could remember the mold and water stains that he would see, how they seemed to be almost just part of the décor of your below average hook up motel with questionable guests.

 

Seeing something like that here in the Tower felt surreal, Tony was sort of a closet neat freak, Clint had more or less picked up on this since moving in. The man’s lab looked like the result of a metal scrap and coffee mug tornado, true, but he made sure that the rest of the tower was kept pretty clean. Clint had a few theories about that but he was pretty certain it mostly had something to do with Tony’s low immune system and germs- so Clint pretty much knew that Tony had Jarvis wired to spot things like mold growing on the walls.

 

Yet here it was and that made Clint feel a little uneasy.

 

The archer slowly walked over to the wall, started to slowly piece to together what was really going on with the spot on the wall- the realization put him even more on edge. It was wasn’t mold he was seeing, it was some sort of black substance that looked more like something rotten was leaking through the wall.

 

                Clint’s stomach twisted a little as he watched two more moths slip out from within the hole- he took a step back and shook his head.

 

                “Jarvis? Hey, man something weird is up with this wall.”

 

                Clint was met with silence.

                “Jarvis?”

 

                Not answer.

 

                “That’s probably not a good sign.”

 

                Even with his hearing aids out Clint would’ve heard the low rumble of Jarvis speaking- he would’ve felt it around him or Jarvis would’ve at least flickered the lights for him.

 

                Clint turned away from the wall and headed for the sink, where he’d sat his hearing aids, but he was stopped dead in his tracks as he looked in the mirror.  His mind whirled as he tried to process what he was seeing- behind him right where the rotting spot had been was a distorted and twisted figure contorting itself out of the rotting hole in jerky and inhuman movements.

 

                “The hell is that,” Clint gasped as his eyes grew wide.

 

                Clint tried to move, whether he was trying to turn around to face the thing down or turn around to nope the futz right out of the bathroom, he could say for sure, but either way it was hopeless. Clint’s body was frozen to the spot- be it out of horror or shock- he just couldn’t move to react to the twisted thing that was now reaching out for him. He could only watch as it got closer toward with its long twisted arm reaching out for him.

 

                Clint felt his neck throbbing painfully as his entire body tensed as tight as a tripwire from his attempt to get it to move. He felt like something was holding him in place, refusing to let him go. He watched as the thing’s head tilted to the side observing him through the mirror, tremors rolled up and down Clint’s body as he began to fight the invisible hold on his body. He couldn’t say why but he knew that if that thing touched him that it would be bad, he just knew that it wasn’t supposed to be near him.

 

                “Don’t come near me,” wheezed as he fought to move, “stay back!”

 

                Clint’s lungs felt like they were starting to burn, it felt like he breathing in ice water.

 

                The figure seemed didn’t seem to listen, it still made its way toward him in slow jerky motions that made it look that much more unnatural.

 

                “S-Stop,” Clint coughed as he fought against the invisible hold even harder, “stop it!”

               

                Clint felt afraid, fear washed over him making the icy invisible grip on him seem to tighten all the more. He struggled harder- causing his body to ache and his lungs to burn.

 

                He felt like he couldn’t breathe like his lungs couldn’t pull in air at all.

 

                “Please,” Clint wheezed, “please stop it hurts.”

               

                He felt like a helpless child like he needed someone to come and save him.

 

                “Please, someone help me,” Clint whispered as the figure’s hand was mere inches from his shoulder.

 

                _“…my baby… Mama will keep you safe…”_

 

                The lights started to flicker as the raspy voice filled Clint’s head and just like that Clint could move again. He spun around, throwing his arms up defensively only to find that he was alone in the bathroom. He looked around frantically, taking notice that the spot on the wall was gone as were the moths that had been fluttering around it. He stumbled backwards, using the sink counter top to keep himself standing- his knees felt like jelly.

 

                Clint shook his head and tried to calm his thudding heart, but realized after a few moments that it wasn’t the thudding of his heart that he was hearing. Clint looked up and saw a handful of those moths throwing their bodies against the light fixtures about him.

 

                His brow furrowed in confusion for a moment- it was only a moment because within seconds after seeing the moths, a pair of cold twisted hands took hold of Clint’s head. The blond barely had time to scream before he felt his head twisted sharply to the side.

 

                Clint’s world went black as he heard and felt his own neck being snapped.

 

                                                                                                            >>\-------------->

                                               

                                                                                               

                Clint surfaced from under the water gasping for air and frantically clawing at the side of the tub. He sat in the now cold bath water coughing and taking big gulps of air, it took more than a few moments to realize what hat actually happened.

 

                He’d fallen asleep in the tub and nearly drowned himself.

 

                Clint blink sluggishly as he finally managed to get enough air in his lungs and calm himself down. He noticed then that the lights where flickering and that there was a muffled barking coming from beyond the bathroom door. He rubbed at his eyes and shakily got out of the tub- pulling the plug as he went.

 

                “Alright, Jarvis,” Clint coughed, “enough with the light show. I’m good now.”

 

                Clint grabbed one of his plushy purple towels and wrapped it around his waist, he grabbed another towel and used it to dry his hair.

 

                “Agent Barton, I would like to strongly advise that you not sleep in the tub,” Clint heard Jarvis snark as he slipped his hearing aids in, “you do have a perfectly acceptable bed within your room.”

 

                “Yeah, I’m not planning on making that same mistake again,” Clint coughed.

 

                “Please see that you do not, both Lucky and I would both be less than pleased with the outcome.”

 

                Clint thought he could hear the slightest tones of worry and annoyance in the AI’s voice as he opened the door to a frantic Lucky. The frantic dog rushed into the room like a hurricane, he rushed around the bathroom sniffing and barking until he was satisfied that there was no one else in the room. Clint gave the one eyed dog a sheepish smile as he pattered back over to his owner and whined.

 

                “Sorry buddy, didn’t mean to scare you,” Clint apologized with a gentle scratch behind his four legged friend’s ears. Lucky gave a short huff and licked at his owner’s hand before heading back out of the room.

 

                “Didn’t mean to scare you either, Jarvis,” Clint said as he left the bathroom and headed to his room to grab some clothes.

 

                “I am not capable of being frightened, Agent Barton,” Jarvis assured, “I am only an AI.”

 

                “Well you sounded awfully scared when you were scolding me a second ago,” Clint pointed out.

 

                “I was not,” Jarvis assured bluntly, “are you sure that you are alright, sir?”

 

                Clint paused in the doorway of his room and rubbed at the back of his neck, the skin there felt tender and the muscles there felt like he’d pulled an overnight at the archery range. He must have hurt himself when he had woke up in the tub.

 

                “Sir?”

 

                “I uh- I’m fine,” Clint answered, “really, I am. I just had a nightmare coupled with nearly drowning because I decided to take a nap in the tub. It shook me up a little, I’m okay though.”

 

                “I believe you, but-”

 

                A loud insistent knocking at Clint’s front door cut Jarvis off and Clint groaned in annoyance knowing that Jarvis had called for someone to come and check up on him.

 

                “Really?”

 

                “To be fair I thought that you were drowning and once you were no longer in any danger you seemed to be in shock so I did not tell him that you were no longer in need of assistance,” Jarvis answered, “though I did inform him that you were no longer in any danger.”

 

                “I’m fine,” Clint snapped, “I don’t want or need Phil coming to check on me.”

 

                “Well actually-” Clint cut Jarvis off.

 

                “No, Jarvis, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need you calling for Phil every time you think I need him,” Clint huffed angrily.

 

                All of the annoyance toward Phil that had plagued Clint earlier came barreling back knocking the nightmare, nearly drowning, and Clint’s sore neck to the back of his mind. Call it avoidance or whatever but Clint’s mind seemed to be better at prioritizing annoyance and pettiness than trauma and shock.

               

                Clint spun on his heels heading for the front door as the knocking became a bit more insistent, he came around the corner to find Lucky sitting by the door wagging his tail happily. He sighed as Lucky looked up at him excitedly waiting to greet their visitor.

 

                The toweled archer nudged past Lucky and opened the door ready to send Phil away with the assurance that he didn’t need him to come to his rescue and that he was fine, but instead he was left standing with his mouth agape and starring at the rather broad chest of the resident Thunder God.

 

                “Oh,” Clint said dumbly, “you’re not Phil.

 

                Thor chuckled, “No, it would appear that I am not.”

 

                “As I was trying to say, Agent Barton, I did not alert Agent Coulson. Thor was closer than anyone else so I alerted him and truth be told he reached you must faster than I expected.”

 

                “Aye, the moment Jarvis called for me I came running. The only reason I did not barge through your door was because Jarvis informed me that you were no longer in any danger.”

 

                “Oh,” Clint replied lamely again.

 

                Clint noticed the Thor’s eyes were looking him over head to toe, Clint felt his cheeks heat up slightly at the look he was receiving from those eyes.  

 

                Why was Thor looking at him like that?

 

                “It seems that I might have interrupted you while you were getting dress,” Thor spoke up in a rumble.

 

                Clint’s eyes went wide and he suddenly remembered that he was only in a towel- an apparently low hanging towel that was very close to showing off a little too much. He quickly grabbed the towel tightly and pulled it back enough to be a little more appropriate for company. He cleared his throat and looked down at his own naked feet.

 

                “Sorry, I would’ve grabbed some pants but I thought you were Phil,” Clint admitted sheepishly.

 

                “Oh? Do you normally greet Phillip at your door in this manor?”

 

                Clint looked up quickly, he knew that his face was bright red now.

 

                “What? No- I mean yes, but not like that. I mean Phil has seen me naked plenty of times, but no I don’t usually answer the door nearly naked for him,” Clint paused as he thought his words over, “okay wait, see Phil has seen me naked before in a platonic way like not in a sexy way at all.”

 

                Thor chuckled and gave Clint a smile, Clint’s stomach did a summersault and mentally cursed himself for it.

 

                “I merely jest, my friend,” Thor assured with humor in his voice, “may I come in?”

 

                Clint nodded and backed up to let the man into the room, he ended up nearly tripping over Lucky who suddenly seemed overly excited to see Thor coming through the door.

 

                “Chill Lucky,” Clint scolded, “you don’t want to make me end up flashing Thor know do you? It’d be a shame considering he hauled ass up here to save my ass.”

 

                Clint closed the door behind Thor and turned around to find the man kneeling next to Lucky and rubbing the happily yipping dog’s belly. Clint was silently embarrassed to realize that he was jealous of his own dog over said belly rubs.

 

                “It would not be too much of a hardship to see you naked, my friend, I have heard much about how pleasing a vision your body is,” Thor assured bluntly.

 

                Clint was thankful that Thor’s back was turned to him, because he was certain that he’d turned tomato red from hearing Thor basically say that he was cool with seeing him naked.

 

                Who the hell had been telling him so much about ‘how pleasing a vision’ his body was?

 

                Fuck, Natasha, of course.

 

                “Clint?”

 

                “Right, okay, uh I’m going to go put on some pants. You’re more than welcome to make yourself at home, I’ll be right back.”

 

                Clint quickly escaped to his bedroom, making sure to shut the door behind him before silently cursing at himself. He quickly went about getting dressed as fast as he could without over thinking what Thor had said.

 

 

                                                                                                              >>\-------------->


	5. With the Living I Struggle....

“Thor, I don’t know how but you are cheating,” Clint pouted as he wildly lifted and moved his controller around, “and I am very disappointed in you.”

Clint bobbed and weaved uselessly trying to get his racer to dodge the line of bananas that Thor had left in his wake. Thor laughed, the rumbles reminding Clint of thunder, he could feel the vibrations traveling through the underside of his legs where they draped over the bigger man’s shoulders.

“I have not cheated, my dear hawk,” Thor said playfully, “tis merely skill.”

“Nope,” Clint grunted as he leaned sharply to the left, ending up basically laying on a half asleep Lucky and having to wrap his legs under Thor’s arms to both anchor himself and possibly restrict to man’s movements, “you are cheating and I’m sincerely hurt that you would do this to me. Really, it’s breaking my heart.”

Thor reacted quickly, just barely missing being hit by a turtle shell, his arms flexed and moved with little trouble even with Clint’s leg wrapped firmly around them. A shivered raced down Clint’s spine and gooseflesh danced across his skin at the feeling of power hidden behind those two arms. It felt like he had his legs wrapped around tree trunks, he was both turned on and a little jealous. A huff from Lucky followed by a quick lick to the face snapped Clint out of it and he quickly straightened back up.

“I am a man of honor, my friend,” Thor boasted as his character pulled ahead in the race, “I would never cheat in a battle against such a noble warrior as yourself.”

“Bullshit,” Clint huffed jabbing at Thor’s side with the heel of his foot, “there is no honor in this game. Only trash talk and underhanded tactics, it the monopoly of video games.”

Thor chuckled, catching Clint’s barefoot with his hand and playfully tickling the sole. Clint let out a less than manly squeak from being tickled and quickly tucked his feet behind Thor’s back for cover. 

“Ticklish are we,” Thor teased.

“You are evil,” Clint pouted.

Clint grabbed a strand of Thor’s hair and gave it a gentle pull in retaliation as the man let out a less than a princely snort of laughter.

“Don’t laugh,” Clint huffed as he looked down at the back of the man’s head, “cheating isn’t a very heroic thing to do and neither is tickling people’s feet. Look at you setting bad examples for kids, Captain America would by extremely disappointed.”

Thor leaned his head back resting it partially against Clint’s thighs and partially against that couch, Clint could see Thor’s smirking face now and it made both his stomach flutter and his pulse jump. He retaliated by using the top of Thor’s head to rest his hands and controller on- this only served to make the thunderer chuckle that much more.

“Perhaps, but I believe that Steven would not be as disappointed as you would believe.”

“Why is that?”

“He taught me every underhanded trick that I have used against you. Especially this one,” Thor teased as he power slid past Princess Daisy and left a line of bananas just for her.

“Aw Thor,” Clint sighed as Princess Daisy went spinning off the edge of Rainbow Road.

Clint couldn’t muster up to much malice toward the larger blond as Toad crossed the finish line taking first place yet again, he did, however, dig his cold toes into the warm flesh of his lower just to be petty. The sharp gasp it drew from the victor made Clint smirk and felt a bit vindicated.

“I have battled Frost Giants who were warmer than your feet,” Thor grumbled but didn’t move to escape the touch of Clint’s feet.

“Don’t be a baby,” Clint teased, “you’re a walking space heater and warming my feet is the least you can do for sending me spiraling off the side of the Rainbow Bridge.”

“Fine, by that logic I shall accept my torture in hopes that it shall grant me mercy for any imaginary acts of cheating you might accuse me of.”

Clint looked down at Thor in silence for a moment before grabbing the small throw pillow next to him and smacking the alien prince in the face with it.

“Just because you talk pretty, Mr. Shakespeare doesn’t mean I won’t notice the smart assery your pretty words are hiding,” Clint huffed.

Thor gave a muffled snort of laughter from under the pillow Clint rolled his eyes, glad that Thor couldn’t see the grin that would’ve ruined the whole illusion of annoyance that he was going for. Clint leaned back against the couch deciding that smothering Thor wasn’t worth the jail time or scolding from Phil and threw his hand to the side to give Lucky a few loving scratches for being such a good pillow earlier. Lucky whined happily and belly crawled until his head was most of Clint’s left thigh.

Clint grinned and rubbed the oversized lapped dog behind the ears a few minutes longer until Thor regains his attention.

“He loves you greatly,” Thor stated, “I have never met a more loyal beast in all my days.”

Clint smiled, “Well I love him very much too. He’s family.”

Lucky’s tail thudded against the couch as he happily received more pats and rubs, it made Clint smile even more- Lucky was really good at making him smile. He’d been so happy when Tony had told him that Lucky was more than welcome in the tower- at first, he’d been sure that Tony wasn’t a fan of dogs, so hearing the man welcome him with open arms had been awesome.

Clint was sure that he’d grinned like an idiot for the entire day.

“I am very glad that you have him in your life, my dear hawk,” Thor admitted.

Clint gave the man an odd look for a second before nodded, “Yeah, me too.”

“I am also very glad that I have you in my own life as well,” Thor added without hesitation, “I find having you in my life guarantees that there is never a dull moment.”

“W-what?”

Clint felt his stomach do summersaults as Thor chuckled slightly at his stutter- boy was that embarrassing but to be fair he had been caught off guard.

“Tis true,” Thor went on, “I’ve never met a man other than Tony who could excite me as much as you.”

Clint’s mouth gaped open for a few moments as he brain went offline- it didn’t help at all that Thor had picked that moment to stretch.

Thor leaned back, his arms going to either side of Clint, his long golden hair pooled out over Clint’s lap as the older man head tilted further backward than before. Clint breath caught in his throat as he watched Thor’s shirt rise up showing off a rather nice view of the man’s gorgeous abs. It was almost obscene how the muscles of Thor’s body stretched and tensed before Clint- honestly, if the prince ever decided that the hero business wasn’t for him he could make a killing in the porn industry.

Clint’s mind chose that moment to go back online- well that and Lucky decided that his owner needed a few sloppy licks to the face.

Clint sputtered out a few protests to Lucky’s sudden shower of affection and pushed the dog's muzzle away from his face.

“Lucky, man, your breath smells like a toilet,” Clint groaned, “which thinking about it now makes me want to shower.”

 “Clint?”

Clint snapped himself out of his momentary daze and focused back on Thor, “Huh?”

“I asked it you were well,” Thor repeated, “you seemed to be lost in thought for a moment there. You were staring rather hard at me, have I misspoken?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” Clint answered with his voice breaking slightly at the end as he realized that he’d been staring at Thor, “no you didn’t say anything wrong I guess I just zoned out or something.”

Fuck that was a close.

Thinking sexy thoughts with Thor sitting between his legs probably wasn’t a very smart thing to do. He gave Lucky a few scratches behind his ears, thankful that his dog had his back and snapped him out of his sex hazed stupidity.

Damn Thor and his stupidly hot self.

“Your face seems to have gone a bit red,” Thor pointed out suddenly, “are you sure that you are alright.”

Clint nodded frantically mentally kicking himself, “Yeah, I’m f-fine. No worries. Seriously man.”

Clint felt his face heating up even more, as Thor got to his knees and turned to face him. Christ, the guy was tall even on his knees- fuck he didn’t need to over think Thor being on his knees.

Was he really reverting in a sex crazed teenager over Thor just saying something nice to him?

Damn it, that was a little sad and embarrassing as hell.

“Your face is red and you seem to be sweating all of the sudden,” Thor pointed out as he rested a far too large hand on Clint’s thigh, “are you sure that you are well, my dear hawk?”

Clint’s eyes locked with Thor’s momentarily, Clint felt like he was trapped by those eyes. They were intense in a way that left him feeling very exposed like Thor could peel everything away and see inside of Clint. It made goosebumps dance over his skin and shivers run up and down his spine- Thor was intense in a way that Clint couldn’t help but long for.

The Thunder God before him was wild, feral in a way that was almost dangerous and Clint loved it. He could relate to it in a sense, it was like staring into the face of a predator, and knowing that at any moment he could take you apart.

Thor was dangerous in a way that his other lovers weren’t.

Clint had picked up on that in the beginning of Thor’s relationship with the others- in the beginning, he’d been worried of that because Phil was dangerous and so were Steve, Tony, and Bruce but not in the same way as Thor. Thor was wild- passionate in an untamed way, it was different from the others in a way that made could leave you feeling like a raw exposed nerve.

Maybe he’d just been projecting himself onto the others, but it was something that scared Clint a bit, the thought of being so exposed by just one look. It made him think about the way he himself worked out in the field- and that actually made him nervous because he knew what a talent like that could do. He knew how eyes like that could take you down at the knees and eventually rip your throat out.

Thinking of someone like that being with Phil had made him nervous in the beginning because it made him think of how it could end badly.

At the time he’d been a little worried about Phil- he hadn’t thought of the man being the type to enjoy being exposed, but then again he’d never thought Phil would be the type of person to play dead and not let Clint know that he was actually alive and ok.

Didn’t that thought leave a bitter taste in his mouth and sting sense of betrayal in his chest.

 Now if only that bitter taste and stinging betrayal would kick start his sex hazed brain into reboot and remind him that getting worked up over Thor was not only a bad idea considering that that man was in a committed relationship with four of his teammates but also a very bad idea because a man with a look like that in his eye held the power to tear Clint down.

“Clint?”

Clint’s heart started pounding in his chest as Thor got closer and yet his mind still hadn’t started working again. 

Suddenly an unhappy whine from Lucky snapped Clint’s mind right out of its mushified state- he honestly almost jumped right out of his skin from the sound too.

At some point, without realizing it he’d tightened his grip on Lucky and the dog was less than happy about it. Clint was both extremely thankful that Lucky was an attention whore and really ashamed that he’d hurt upset his best buddy.

“Crap, Lucky, sorry,” Clint all but yelped in surprise as he put all of his focus on the wriggling mutt.

Thor gave a small chuckle, “I believe he wishes to be let go.”

Clint jumped slightly at Thor’s voice and in the process let go of Lucky, the annoyed dog quickly took notice of his freedom and wriggled out from between the two men, leaving the couch with an annoyed bark.

Clint gave a pout and reached for his fleeing dog, both wanting to give an apology cuddle and use him as a distraction from anymore over sexualized thoughts about Thor.

“Lucky, I’m so sorry,” Clint called after the mutt, “come back and let me love you. I’m sorry that I’m a bad parent.”

He flopped to the side with his arm reaching above his head, really unable to physically leave the couch with the solid and unmoving Thor between his legs. He pouted for a moment as he realized that Lucky wasn’t coming back to save him, he was now completely alone with Thor.

Clint momentarily thought about yelling out to Jarvis that he needed a competent and professional adulting adult to come and save Thor from him before he did something and embarrassed himself.

“I’m sure he’ll forgive you,” Thor chuckled, “a slice or two of pizza and you will be his favorite once again.”

Clint looked back to find Thor- still on his knees between his legs- only now looking amused.

“Yeah, I guess,” Clint answered rather dumbly.

Thor’s eyes seemed to soften suddenly, the intensity left and Clint felt like he could breathe again. He didn’t feel like Thor was going to eat him alive anymore.

“Lucky loves you very much,” Thor stated, “I believe that you can do no wrong in his eyes.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Clint answered honestly, “to have someone see me that way. Even if it is just Lucky.”

Thor shook his head, “I think that you would be surprised by just how many people see you in that light, Clint.”

Clint gave Thor a look before giving an amused snort, “What are they blind or something?”

“You do not believe me?”

“I think you give out compliments to easily,” Clint answered, “if you haven’t noticed I basically consist of screw ups and bad ideas.”

Clint watched as a frown drew across Thor’s face, “That is not true.”

“You should go have a chat with Natasha and get back to me on that,” Clint half-heartedly joked, “ask her about the time in Melbourne and I think you’ll reconsider those words.”

Clint held his hand out to Thor and he took it pulling Clint back into a sitting position, once he was sitting up Thor surprised him by taking hold of his chin and lifting Clint’s face up to look him in the eye.

“I don’t believe that I will ever reconsider those words about you,” Thor promised.

Clint looked away from Thor, refusing to meet his eyes.

“I don’t wanna make you a liar,” Clint said in a painfully honest voice, “but with expectations like that you’re making it really hard not to.”

“Clint-”

The sound of someone clearing their throat promptly ended Thor’s heart to heart with Clint- a fact Clint was more than thankful for.

Clint leaned turned his head to find Tony standing in the living-room’s entry way with his eyebrow raised slightly and a hand resting on his hip.

“Thor, I thought we agreed that if you planned on getting between birdbrain’s legs you’d give me an invite,” the engineer said with a playful pout.

“Oh yes, how could I have forgotten,” Thor teased, “do pardon my forgetfulness, my love.”

Clint turned back to Thor and gave him a look, “Oh ha ha, aren’t you funny.”

“I know isn’t he just,” Tony sighed, “I try not to encourage him too much but Steve thinks he’ll eventually get better at it.”

Clint snickered at the pout that fell across Thor’s face at Tony’s words.

“My love, you wound me so.”

“You’d think by now he would’ve developed a thicker skin,” Tony said playfully.

“Maybe Steve is babying him too much,” Clint suggested with a smirk as he leaned his head back against the couch.

“Hmm, you might be on to something with that one, birdbrain,” Tony agreed.

“You are both truly cruel with your words,” Thor sighed.

Clint watched as Tony walked over to the couch, the man stood behind the couch for a moment before placing his hands on either side of Clint’s head and looked down at him.

Clint cocked his head to the side, causing the side of his head to bump against Tony’s arms gently, the older man gave him smirk- Clint gave one back.

“To what do I owe the honor of your presence, Mr. Stark,” Clint questioned playfully.

Tony snort and rolled his eyes, as he gently tapped a finger against Clint’s forehead.

 “Well, peasant,” Tony teased, “I’ve come bearing a gift.”

Clint watched as Tony pulled out a small box from his pocket, Clint grinned widened.

“Got my high-tech ears all fixed up?”

“Damn straight, even added a few new features. These babies now tune themselves so if there are any volumes changes they shift to fit the volume in a way best fit for you to safely hear. No more sharp sound peaks or worrying about not hearing something. They are basically high functioning ear drums that you wear.”

“I could kiss you,” Clint chirped happily as he opened the box to examine his new ears.

“Hear that Thor, you might be between his legs but I’m getting all the action,” Tony taunted.

Clint rolled his eyes at Tony’s remark but quickly went back to looking over his new ears. The hearing aids were a near perfect match to his skin tone and a little smaller than his earlier ones- less bulky and obvious. Clint was pretty sure no one would be able to see them unless they were really looking for them.

“Really, though, Tony, thank you,” Clint said as he picked on up and looked it over, “they look amazing.”

“Wait until you put them in,” Tony said, “they should fit more comfortably. I’m not saying you should- because Bruce would kill me- but you could sleep in these and not have to worry about any problems. There made to shape to your ear once put in so no uncomfortable rubbing or pressure, they allow air circulation to the skin inside of your ear, and they have a monitoring system that tells them when you are sleeping so they can shut off to converse battery life. Please, though, don’t sleep in them, I really don’t want to be lectured by Bruce about encouraging your bad habits again.”

“I only did that once,” Clint said as he switched out the hearing aids, “okay maybe twice but to be fair it was late and the care drive back from that boring winter Gala that Pepper made us go to was very long. Also, it’s mostly Steve’s fault for being such a good pillow.”

“True,” Tony agreed, “Speaking of Captain Mother Hen, he said you almost bashed that pretty little skull of yours in on my shiny gym floors and that Phil sent you to your room to catch a few winks. Buck-a-boo said you stomped off rather dramatically- he said it was a damn near perfect impression of me when Phil banishes me from my lab.”

Clint cringed a bit at the memory, he had been a bit of a drama queen at the moment- but Phil had struck a bit of a nerve with how he’d pulled rank on him like that.

“Bruce was livid about that, by the way,” Tony went on, “if I recall correctly he even went a little green during Buck-a-boo’s little gossip session. It took all kinds of bribing to keep him from storming your nest with his Doctor bag and those bright purple Band-Aids that you like so much.”

“I’m fine,” Clint huffed, “Phil was just being over protective is all. It wasn’t that bad of a fall.”

“Steve said you hit the floor pretty hard.”

Clint frowned, “Steve is a worry wart.”

“Amen,” Tony agreed.

“Steven cares about the both of you,” Thor defended, “he simply wishes to keep you both safe and well.”

“He also wants to suck all the fun out of everything,” Tony pouted.

“No wonder him and Phil are a perfect match,” Clint huffed, “too boring peas in a pod.”

“That’s why they need me,” Tony sighed dramatically, “too bright their otherwise dull lives.”

“You mean over stress their lives,” Clint teased, “Mr. Gives-His-Address-Out-To-Super-Villains.”

““Really you want to play that game? Huh, funny because a little AI told me that a certain resident bird brain almost drowned because he decided to take a nap in his tub,” Tony sang with a less than impressed look on his face, “at least my life was threatened by an actual villain and not my own bathtub.”

“Jarvis you tattler,” Clint grumbled.

“I am truly wounded by your words, Agent Barton,” Jarvis snarked.

“Sure you are, Mr.-I’m-Just-An-AI,” Clint huffed, “can’t believe that I was sold out by a snarky computer code.”

“If I may point out, you are also arguing with the ‘snarky computer code,” Jarvis stated.

“I’m not talking to you anymore,” Clint huffed.

“Won’t last,” Tony teased, “you two bicker almost as much as he and I do.”

“If I may point out, Sir, I do not bicker,” Jarvis said, “Agent Barton is the only one who bickers.”

“Do not,” Clint retorted in a less than adult manner.

“Do so,” Jarvis replied in an all too proper tone.

“Children please, don’t make Daddy send you both to a corner,” Tony teased.

Clint shook his head as Thor chuckled.

“So what have you two been doing up here all day anyway?”

Clint shrugged, “Well Thor has been kicking my ass at Mario Karts.”

Thor gave a smug grin, “Tis true.”

Clint stuck out his tongue at the grinning Thunderer then leaned his head back and looked up at Tony, “I think he’s been cheating, though. From what Intel I’ve gather from him, Steve has taught him his cheating ways.”

“For shame Thor,” Tony gasped in fake disappointment, “to think I held such high regards for your integrity.”

“You both vex me so,” Thor sighed in annoyance.

Clint and Tony both gave a snort of laughter at the prince’s annoyance.

“You still love us, though,” Tony teased.

Thor smirked is a way that made Clint’s heart to a double time before saying, “I do.”

Tony leaned down over Clint to reach down and gave Thor’s long locks a gentle tug- Thor retaliated by leaning forward and pressing his lips to Tony’s. Clint’s breath caught in his throat as his entire body tensed up- just to the left of his face right over his shoulder were two extremely attractive men whom both he had a thing for were kissing.

Clint didn’t know what to do, well he did- the obvious thing to do was too quickly and politely excuse himself before he popped an awkward boner, but his body and mouth seemed very unwilling to listen to his brain. The moment Tony and Thor broke the kiss and moved away Clint somehow managed to kick start his common sense and get his mouth to start working again.

“Wow, I’m thirsty,” he suddenly said a little too loudly, “I-I think I’m going to go and grab me something to drink. You guys want anything?”

Clint quickly maneuvered his way out from between the two men and crawled frantically over the arm of the sofa. He hitting the ground running- so to say- and made a beeline for the kitchen.

“I’ve got bottled water, sodas, juice boxes- shut up Tony, adults can and do drink juice boxes,” Clint ranted as he focused on the inside of his fridge.

“I didn’t say anything,” Tony called back.

“Yeah, well I know you were thinking it,” Clint yelled over his shoulder even as his cherry red face blazed on in residual embarrassment from the thoughts seeing those two kissing had stirred up in his mind.

Fuck he was a dirty minded little shit.

“I would like an apple juice box if you have one,” Thor answered.

“Oh honey,” Clint heard Tony coo, “you are so precious.”

Clint rolled his eyes as he grabbed a juice for both he and Thor, “What about you Tony? You want a juice box or-”

“Hmm, I’ll take a water bottle,” came Tony’s answer from directly behind Clint.

He would never in a million years admit it, but he might have made a noise similar to a squeak- but to be fair he had had a trying day and he might have felt that there was a good chance that Thor and Tony were trying to kill him.

“Right,” Clint said quickly trying to cover up the squeak that he refused to admit to, “here I’ll get you one.”

“No worries,” Tony said as he stepped closer, “I can get it.”

Clint’s body went ridged as Tony leaned in and reached around him- the man’s chin rested on his shoulder and his front pressed snuggly against Clint’s back. Clint took a moment to take in the feeling that came with the being touched by someone else- he’d missed that.

It was almost overwhelming, first Thor and now Tony. Clint found himself not wanting to point out the obvious about Tony invading his personal bubble, all he really wanted to do was soak up the warm fuzzy feelings that he got when someone else touched him. He found it impossible not to let his body go lax against Tony, letting all the warmth of the other man’s body soak into him.

Clint let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his shoulders releasing their tension and sagging. Tony was basically the only thing really keeping him upright.

It was almost like being high without any of the downsides.

“Um T-Tony,” Clint stuttered.

“Yes?”

“I can get the water bottle for you,” Clint pointed out.

“I know,” Tony replied, “but I’m not a fan of people handing me thing remember?”

“Oh, um right,” Clint said rather dopily.

“You don’t mind do you?”

Clint heard the double meaning in that question- you would’ve had to have been completely insane not to have heard it. He didn’t understand what Tony was thinking, though, he had Thor just in the other room- a man who Clint knew was always down to cuddle.

“No, I don’t mind,” Clint answered and he didn’t, not if it meant getting to have Tony so close to him.

Tony hummed in a very pleased tone that seemed to rumble throughout Clint’s body, making his toes curl slightly.

“You know Phil wasn’t trying to pull rank on you right?”

Clint’s hazy mind cleared slightly, just enough to focus on Tony’s words.

“What are you trying to apologize for him? Listen, I get it he needs to know that all his assets are at a hundred percent-”

“I’m not trying to apologize for him,” Tony cut in, “in fact I’m actually super pissed at him right now for unrelated reasons. Don’t ask because I won’t tell.”

Clint frowned curious about what it was that Phil could’ve done to make Tony angry at him, but it really wasn’t any of his business and he tended to try not to put his nose into Phil’s business.

“I won’t ask,” Clint assured, “if it doesn’t involve me I don’t really have a reason to snoop.”

He felt Tony bury his face into his shoulder and his free arm wrap around Clint’s middle. Clint looked back at Tony curiously, something seemed off.

“Tony?”

Tony sighed and turned his head to look at Clint, “Phil is an ass but everything he does is for a reason even if that reason is stupid and will probably bite him in the ass.”

“Huh?”

“What I’m getting at is, Phil wasn’t pulling rank on you, birdbrain,” Tony sighed, “he was just being a mother hen. He wants to make sure that you don’t end up scrambling what little brain you have in that pretty little head of yours.”

Clint rolled his eyes, but couldn’t find any real annoyance to project at Tony- he was still a little dopey from the surprise cuddle high.

“I don’t need him looking out for me,” Clint huffed, "believe it or not I survived just fine long before Phil and Natasha decided to become my caretaker.”

“Dummy, they aren’t your caretakers, they are your friends,” Tony sighed, “and people say I’m thick headed.”

“Well, you kind of are,” Clint mumbled.

Tony poked Clint in the side in retaliation, Clint snorted and jerked away slightly before relaxing back into Tony’s arms.

“Listen, just stop being all mopey and hiding away in your room. Phil told you to rest not lock yourself away in your cramped little tower or not it’s up to you but I’m sure Bruce wouldn’t be too happy about you missing dinner tonight just because you’re being all butt hurt.”

Clint backed up from the fridge, Tony still clung on to him without causing too much fuss even as he shut the fridge door.

“You are an ass,” Clint grumbled.

“Maybe but you know I’m right.”

Clint huffed and tried to shake Tony off, it didn’t work.

“Let go.”

“M’kay,” Tony sighed but still didn’t move to release him, “listen, though, I’m going to borrow Thor. I need a little muscle in the lab and Steve seems to be to help little old me.”

Clint pouted, “What? Aw, Tony, come on Thor is the only one who is actually any fun.”

“I’m offended by that, birdbrain. I’ll have you know I’m tons of fun. There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to showing just how much fun I am.”

Clint snorted, “Oh, I know. I’ve seen more than a few videos showing how fun you are.”

Tony snickered, “Really? I wonder if you watched any certain one is particular.”

Clint knew Tony was just baiting him but he still felt his cheeks heat up slightly at the direction of that comment. Clint turned his face slightly from Tony’s view and gave a hopefully not so guilty sounding snort.

“You wish,” Clint shot back lamely.

“Huh, wonder what your browser history might have to say about that,” Tony teased.

“Thor doesn’t have Jarvis hack video games and rewrite their codes so only he wins, like a sore loser,” Clint said changing the topic rather bluntly and taking a shot at Tony while he was at it.

“I only did that once or twice,” Tony grumbled letting the subject change, “and I’m not a sore loser.”

“You totally are,” Clint taunted without any fire to it.

“Are not,” Tony huffed.

Both men went quiet for a second, long enough for Clint to finally catch an odd vibe coming off of Tony and before he thought better of it his mouth ran off without consulting his brain.

“Tony?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s up?”

Tony went still, “What do you mean?”

“You’re acting weird,” Clint mumbled, “I can’t put my finger on it but something is off with you.”

Tony shook his head and let go of Clint, “Paranoid much.”

Clint turned around and looked Tony over, he did what he did best and started to read Tony. He could see that Tony was trying to play something off, that he was upset and trying his best not to let it show.

“Tony-”

“Did you have any apple juice?”

Tony and Clint both turned to find Thor leaning around the corner into the kitchen, Clint held up the box of juice and gave the mountain of a man a grin.

“I’ve gotcha, big guy,” Clint answered, “heads up.”

“Thank you, Clint,” Thor said as he caught the box, “Tony, you said that you needed to borrow me?”

“You heard right. You’ve been drafted into doing some heavy lifting for me,” Tony explained.

Clint caught the way that Thor paused for a second looking between Tony and him before he spoke, “Alright, though I do apologize for having to leave so sudden, my dear hawk.”

Clint shrugged and gave an understanding, “Hey, it’s all good, man. Go help your damsel in distress over here. Wouldn’t want you to break a nail or anything.”

Thor chuckled, “Perish the thought.”

“Hardy har,” Tony snorted, “aren’t you both just a barrel of laughs.”

“What can I say we’re considering taking our act on the road,” Clint teased.

Tony rolled his eyes, “I can see it now. Thunder and Dunder Head, you two wouldn’t even need an audience seeing how you both laugh just as loud at your own jokes.”

Clint stabbed his straw into his juice box, “That attitude is the exact reason that Thor is going to run away with me in secret to live out our dream of being standup comedians. We’re going to make a killing in Vegas, just you wait.”

“Sure you keep telling yourself that, Katniss,” Tony snorted.

“Thor please taking your dreaming killing boyfriend and remove him from my sight,” Clint huffed waving his hand in dismissal, “his presence is beginning to annoy me.”

“As you wish, Clint,” Thor spoke up as he playfully, “I shall remove him at once.”

“Hey,” Tony squawked, “stop taking his side.”

“I merely jest, my love,” Thor said with a smile as he pulled Tony in close, “it is far too much fun helping him to rile you up. I cannot help myself.”

“Ass,” Tony pouted.

“I do believe that you quite enjoy my arse if I recall correctly,” Thor teased with a playful smirk on his face.

“Why your majesty what deplorable behavior,” Tony gasped put a hand dramatically to his chest, “how would you loyal subjects react to such talk?”

“I believe jealousy and possibly red face,” Thor answered, “also I have as of yet to truly give them a display of deplorable behavior- though with you as my side I think I could manage a far better one.

“Okay, yeah, let’s not,” Clint quickly spoke up clutching his juice just this side of too tightly as he felt the tips of his ears heating up, “Ew, please stop before you both further emotionally scare my dog and me.”

Tony turned around in Thor's arms to face Clint and Thor rested his chin on the top of the shorter man’s head, “Don’t be such a baby, we’re totally still PG. See, most clothes are still on.”

Clint rolled his eyes and then turned to look down at Lucky who was lazing around his food dish, “Look away Lucky, look away. I can’t afford doggy therapy and people therapy, so one of us is just going to have to drink the emotional scarring away.”

Lucky gave a huff, obviously not seeing the humor of Clint’s comic genius.

“Whoever is encouraging you, by actually laughing at your jokes needs to be put to a stop before you get any worse,” Tony sighed.

“Play nice children,” Thor said.

“He started it,” Tony pouted.

“So you were leaving?”

“Very subtle aren’t you.”

“Is that the elevator I hear?”

“Fine, I know when I’m not wanted,” Tony huffed dramatically as he started to leave, “come along Thor our presence is no longer wanted here.”

Thor shook his head with a smile, “Yes my love. Clint, I had a very nice time, we must do this again. Though without the near drowning next time.”

Clint really did blush that time, “Right uh yeah, Yeah less drowning next time would be nice- maybe even no drowning while we’re at it.”

Thor laughed and Clint smiled at the sound.

“Let’s try no drowning if you don’t mind,” Tony suggested, “I hear causally asking someone to hangout works just as well as having a frantic AI send out an SOS. Be happy Thor responded so fast if he hadn’t and I had gotten the call first there would be a nice Iron Man shaped hole right in your bathroom floor.”

“Bye Tony,” Clint sighed.

“I’ll see you later, pookie,” Tony said as he disappeared down the hallway, “and I mean it about going to hang out with Bruce or something. Socializing with those on your team is actually a healthy thing you know.”

“Yes mother,” was all Clint replied.

“Mother knows best,” Tony shouted back.

“Always has to have the last word, huh,” Clint said to Thor with a smirk.

“I fear he cannot help himself at times,” Thor chuckled, “I truly did have a wonderful time with you, though. Please let us do this again and soon.”

Clint nodded, “Okay. I’ll have my people call your people.”

Thor chuckled and gave Clint a little wave before he followed after Tony, Clint gave a quick wave back- feeling a little stupid once he heard his front door open and shut.

“I’ll have me people call your people? Really, Barton?”

With a deep sigh he turned and looked at Lucky, the one-eyed mutt looked right back at him in almost a judging way.

“Oh shut up, I didn’t see you saying anything witty,” Clint grumbled before noisily slurping at his juice box.

 >>\----------------->

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know everything if moving sort of slow but I want to build up the relationships a bit and build up with the Swordsman element.   
> I hate diving right into the meaty parts without building the bones and structure up first.   
> The story is sort of complex well as far as my writing skills go its complex and I have to figure out the best way to get it on the screen without screwing it all up- I'm a perfectionist if the constant edits didn't give that away.  
> Also with Mama herself there is an angle I'm going with it'll make more sense later on.   
> I literally have over 1000 pages already written to this story not kidding, I'm going through picking and cleaning up the chapters as I post that's why it has taken me literally years to write this.   
> But I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I'm going to try and upload another chapter by this weekend.  
> bye.


	6. The Dead Hold on so tightly...

Thor quietly watched Tony as the elevator descended, he waited patiently knowing that Tony could only last so long before the tension in his shoulder would release and the words he was holding back would tumble past his lips. He noticed that something was off with his lover the moment he made an appearance, it was small things, things that most people wouldn’t notice the significance in unless they knew Tony on a more personal level. Thor had only picked up on these things because he’d learned over the time that he’d been with Tony these little things could help out tremendously in keeping his self-destructive from the grips of danger.

Tony could protect himself- Thor knew that very well- but Tony was very prone to causing the worst problems himself. He bad about taking everything on himself and not sharing the weight or responsibility- this was something Thor hoped to eventually put a stop to by trying to teach Tony how to share his burden with those who wished to help him.

Steve and Phil had their ways of helping Tony with this- which both tended to lead to sparing or a bit of a heated argument, Thor did not find those tactics to be very helpful.

Bruce’s way was always to cater to Tony’s more scientific side or to gently talk things out with him- Thor thought this was a bit better but still lacked what he felt Tony really needed.

His way tended to be a mix of the other three men’s ways- one that seemed to benefit Tony in a way that he needed.

This was his way, letting Tony come to him, letting the man work himself up in silence and waiting in comforting silence.

Tony worked a bit like Loki did- Thor would never say that aloud, but it was true- arguing, caving to his desires to distract himself, or talking to him like one would if trying to coax a cornered animal into calming never worked if anything it made matters worse. Tony needed silence when working things out, he needed a calm silent observer there with a listening ear and a comforting hand. He didn’t need an aggressor, a chastiser, or overly nurturing enabler- he needed someone willing to wait, listen, and offer comfort when asked for. Tony worked better on his own terms without an outside force and with the life he had lived that wasn’t something he was allowed frequently.

So that’s what Thor did, he waited patiently, listened, and offer comfort both when Tony requested and admittedly when he did not- but that was mostly because he had become rather skilled at seeing when Tony was just being stubborn.

An annoyed huff from Tony was signal enough for Thor.

“Anthony?”

The man growled angrily and began pacing in the small space of the elevator car.

“How can he do this? Huh? He thinks that lying is the best way of going about this?”

Thor cocked an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent- he knew that Tony wasn’t really looking for an answer just yet.

“He just decides that _he_ can just not tell him about any of this? Who does he think he is? I mean   when has lying ever ended well? Huh?”

Tony stopped his pacing to turn and look at Thor questioningly, this was his sign to speak.

“Anthony, my love, please explain what has upset you so.”

Tony sighed, deflated really, as he gave his lover a hopeless look.

Thor held open his arms- Tony paused for a moment then dived right into Thor’s arms. Thor held him close and kissed the top of the man’s head.

“Anthony,” Thor prompted gently.

Tony sighed and turned his head, pressing his cheek against Thor’s chest, he wrapped his arms around Thor’s middle and rested his palms flat against his back taking in the comforting warmth there.

“Phil is an ass,” Tony started moodily.

“The reason this time would be?”

“He wants to keep something very important from Clint,” Tony answered, “and I don’t think that it’s a good idea. In fact, it’s a horrible idea that I know will bite all of us in the ass.”

Thor looked down at Tony, his brow drew together in concerned confusion, Tony looked up at him looking both miserable and upset.

“Anthony, tell me what is going on,” Thor pressed.

“There’s a man after Clint,” Tony started, “he’s someone from Clint’s past who caused a lot of bad shit to happen to Clint. I don’t know all the details about that- Clint’s past is pretty vague, anything before his time with the Circus is almost nonexistent- but what I do know is that this man is dangerous and he’s after Clint.”

Thor started, “Someone is after Clint?”

Tony nodded, “His name is Jacques Duquesne he was a performer in the Carson Carnival, he was apparently a mentor to Clint- looking at the multiple hospital visits shows that he was more of a manipulative shit who abused and used Clint. There was a heist where Duquesne almost killed a security guard, Clint stopped him and was beaten half to death and left for the police. Later on, something happened- I can’t find all of the information on that, hopefully, Phil plans to fill in the gaps- but whatever it was Duquesne was injured and eventually pronounced brain dead. Phil had him locked away in some SHEILD medical facility.”

Thor took in the information, his mind working away at what Tony told him. He didn’t know much of Clint’s past, to be honest, he knew little of his present other that what little the archer chose to share with him, but hearing this made sense of thing certain things. It broke his heart knowing that someone who was meant to teach and take care of Clint had broken him in such a way.

Something clicked in his head, what Tony had said pulled his attention back to it.

“Brain dead? Tony, how is this man after Clint if-”

Tony pulled back and looked up at Thor with a renewed intensity, “That’s just it, no one really understands how he’s awake. It’s not just that, he woke up out of the blue and murdered the people assigned to monitoring him. Snapped their necks and with some, he twisted their heads all the way around. Someone who has just woken up from a being in a coma as long as he has does not just hop up and have the physical strength to do what he did to these people. It’s impossible! If I hadn’t seen the crime scene pictures then I wouldn’t have believed any of it, but I did see them, I might have even had a nightmare or two because of them.”

Tony rubbed furiously at his eyes- before trying to pull away from Thor to start his furious pacing again. Thor held tight and pulled him close, pressing Tony’s back tightly against his chest.

“Tony, my love, calm down,” Thor soothed, “it is alright to be afraid and concerned for those you care for, you do not have to hide it away with anger and frustration.”

“Stop being sensible you’re making me realize how much I love you.”

Thor smiled despite the worrying circumstances and kissed Tony’s cheek, “I apologize but I cannot apologize for my words.”

“You gentleman,” Tony grumbled in a tone that sounded less like a compliment and more along the lines of a crude word.

“Thank you,” Thor chuckled, “I was raised with the manors of royalty, my dear.”

Tony elbowed him, Thor grunted more for the benefit of Tony’s pride than from any pain and both men knew this.

“Manors of a royal ass, if you ask me,” Tony huffed but the smile Thor caught sight of from the corner of his eye ruin the effect.

Thor’s smile fell as he rested his chin on Tony’s shoulder and let the troubling matters at hand fill his mind again.

“What does Phil intend to do about all of this?”

“We’re going to find out once the doors open,” Tony answered, “Phil has gotten everyone together in my lab to give a sitrep on all of this. He wants to be an adult and talk everything out instead of standing still long enough for me to plot his downfall.”

Thor chuckled and kissed Tony’s neck, “What a horrid thing our darling Phil has done. Choosing to maturely go about all of this? Why it is truly a dastardly thing.”

Thor’s sarcasm was met with another elbow to the gut, Thor merely chuckled and pressed his face against the side of Tony’s neck.

“This is serious, Thor,” Tony pointed out.

Thor sighed, his breath ghosting over Tony’s skin, “I know, I do not mean to jest. I am simply trying to keep the both of us calm. I am trying very hard not to call down the wrath of the All-Father upon the fool who has harmed Clint and I am also trying to calm you. It is a hard thing to remain clear headed when I see you distressed so.”

Tony relaxed against Thor's chest and closed his eyes, “I don’t want to lie to Clint. Lying never ends well and he’s already so iffy with us as it is. I don’t want to ruin what progress we’ve made with him and I’m terrified that we’re not only putting him in danger but that we are also risking losing what trust we’ve earned so far.”

Thor couldn’t help but agree with what Tony was saying but at the same time, he trusted Phil’s decision. Phil wasn’t one to simply withhold truth without a strong reason behind it, he knew that the man knew far more about Clint than anyone else and if he believed that this was the best course of action then it surely had to be.

Still, the fear of losing Clint weighed heavily in his mind- he wasn’t afraid to admit he had fallen for the archer and the idea of not having the man in his life terrified almost as much as losing one of his lovers.

“I fully understand,” Thor admitted, “but do you really think that Phil would risk losing Clint’s trust is there was not a reason to it?”

Tony didn’t reply, Thor pressed on knowing that he was getting through to the man.

“Would Phil ever do anything that would purposely hurt Clint? Do you even slightly believe that Phil could do such a thing? I know you have seen the fear in his eyes every time Clint does something dangerous, the way he holds his breath every time Clint goes silent on the coms, and how late he stays up waiting for him to come home. With all of that in mind, can you honestly tell me that you believe for even a second that Phil would risk Clint’s trust and safety for something unimportant?”

Tony’s silence was answer enough for Thor, he nodded gently and kissed the shell of Tony’s ear.

“Fine,” Tony relented, “you’re right. I don’t like it but you’re right.”

The elevator let out a gentle melody, alerting them before the doors opened to their floor. Thor took Tony’s hand and led him out of the elevator, before he led him any further down the hallway he still and turned to give Tony a soft smile.

“Just hear him out, Tony. Let him explain his actions and why he believes this is the best course of action. You do not have to like it, but if it is best for Clint then we must hear him out.”

Tony sighed, “Fine, but when this all blows up in our faces I’m making him and you sleep on the couch.”

Tony walked on past Thor, leaving the man to momentarily shake his head before following him into the lab.

 

“I don’t care if we are heroes,” Natasha’s raised voice met them as the lab doors opened, “the moment I find him I’m putting a bullet right between his eyes!”

“You think I haven’t considered the very same thing myself? We can’t just do that, though, Natasha!”

“He should’ve already been dead! The fact that you kept that bastard alive and breathing makes me furious! How could you even consider letting him live!”

“I didn’t want to! Do you really think that Clint would’ve been happier with him dead? Do you honestly think that would’ve been better weighing on his mind?”

“I don’t understand why we weren’t informed of this man before he became a threat,” Steve snapped, “did it not cross anyone’s mind not even once that maybe his teammates should’ve been informed?”

“Steve, I don’t think this involves you,” Natasha snapped.

“I think it does! I care about him just as much as you Natasha,” Steve snapped, “I’m not exactly a fan of seeing people I care about being endangered because someone thinks it’s smart to keep an important piece of information from me.”

“It’s his past and his story to tell, Steve” Bucky spoke up, “if he didn’t want us to know then it’s none of our business.”

“It is if it puts him in danger,” Steve shot back.

“He was in a coma,” Phil stressed, “one that he was never supposed to wake up from! If I’d thought even for a moment that he would wake up I would’ve killed him myself!”

A long and not so pleasant string of angry Russian poured from Natasha’s mouth as Tony and Thor walked into the chaos.

The first person that Thor’s eyes focused on was Bruce, who was sitting rather rigidly on the old and ragged sofa Tony kept in the lab. The man had was taking deep breaths and had his eyes closed, Thor took it to mean that he was not taking things so well. Tony seemed to have caught on to that as well because he made a beeline through the chaos without so much as a word from Thor.

Once Thor was assured that Tony had was taking care of Bruce his focus moved to take in everything else.

Steve stood as straight as a board with his arms across examining the pulled up holographic files in the air before him. Bucky seemed to be pacing, Pepper stood quietly next to Steve, while Natasha and Phil seemed to be within an inch of being at each other’s throat.

Thor sighed and quickly stepped forward to defuse the situation the best that he could.

“Enough,” he bellowed loudly.

His voice echoed through the room like a clap of thunder- a bit over dramatic, yes, but it did the trick. He both quieted the bickering and brought everyone’s attention back to one point- if he had a few less than happy pair of eyes on him so be it.

“Bit dramatic there, don’t you think, your highness,” Tony quipped.

“It did the trick,” Thor pointed out as he made his way past the couch. He gently brushed his fingers across Bruce’s hand as he passed by, meeting the man’s deep brown eyes briefly with a soft glance before turning back to the others.

“That it did,” he heard Tony mumble as he came to a stop in front of the others.

“Thor,” Phil sighed, “how was Clint?”

“He was fine,” Thor assured, “we spent a large part of the afternoon playing games. He seemed slightly annoyed at how my skill on Mario Karts has improved but otherwise he was perfectly fine.”

“What about earlier? The whole nearly drowning thing,” Natasha questioned.

“He merely fell asleep while bathing,” Thor answered, “I believe his lack of sleep simply caught up to him caught up to him at a venerable moment.”

Natasha didn’t look anymore at ease with this explanation.

“Yeah, wonder what he’ll be doing the next time it catches up to him,” Bucky huffed.

“It’s nothing too new,” Natasha admitted, “he’s always had issues with sleeping even before the Avengers. Though, I can’t ever remember him suddenly dosing off like that. I’m just glad you got to him in time, Thor.”

Thor nodded, “I am as well, though he was awake and up before I reached him. He seemed perfectly alert by the time I reached his floor.”

“Still, thank you for getting to him so fast,” Phil thanked him.

Thor nodded before turning to look at the files before him, the photos were the first things to catch his eye. He understood Tony’s distress entirely, the scenes were grizzly- Thor has seen worse in war but to think a mortal man had done such things with his bare hands did raise concern.

“What manner of man did such things?”

“Jacques Duquesne, once known as The Swordsman. He’s been everything from a rebel fighter in a communist revolt in South East Asia to a high profile criminal working out of Carson Carnival of Traveling Wonders. He was a drunkard and a cruel violent bastard, and now he’s a murderous psychopath who we have to find and capture,” Phil explained.

Thor turned to look at Phil, “Why is he after Clint?”

All eyes focused on Phil in that moment.

“Phil was just about to enlighten us on that,” Bruce spoke up.

Phil was silent for a moment before his cleared his throat and answered, “My best guess is that he wants Clint back.”

The room was deathly silent as that and then Bucky broke that silence with a vengeance.

“He fucking wants what?”

 “Duquesne, was a very sick man before he became catatonic,” Phil started, “if those photos are anything to go by then he’s become even worse. Before this, though, before Clint left the circus, it’s believed that there was a more intimate arrangement.”

“Phil,” Steve pressed as Phil’s voice failed him, the anger in his voice was just barely contained.

Thor felt his own anger threatening to overcome him from the implications of what Phil was saying. Surely Phil didn’t mean-

“Duquesne and Clint were together in an abusive relationship. One that seems to have started when Clint was still underage, Clint has stated that it didn’t become sexual until he was fifteen, but the physical abuse started when he was twelve. We have hospital files to show a definite timeline of abuse starting at that time and stopping when Clint was around eighteen. From what Clint has told us when he became a temporary apprentice to Duquesne, the possessive behavior toward him started and it didn’t end until the coma. We believe that Duquesne’s obsession with Clint hasn’t stopped if anything it seems that the psychosis has worsened the obsession and that it has sent the man on some murderous self-proclaimed mission to find Clint again.”

Phil took a deep breath, his fists clenched and shaking as he fought back the fury in his eyes.

“Why was he kept alive all this time? Why not pull the damn cord and send that bastard to rot in hell,” Bruce asked.

“Clint asked me to keep him alive,” Phil answered.

The room was once again stunned into silence, everyone was trying to take that answer in.

“What?”

“Why would he want that bastard to live?”

“Why would you let that stop you? That man deserved to die after what he put Clint through,” Natasha growled.

“Clint didn’t want his blood to be on his hands,” Phil explained.

“What do you mean,” Steve asked.

“Clint put him into the coma six years ago,” Phil explained, “he nearly beat the man to death with a lead pipe after he caught him during a SHEILD sting operation on a sex trafficking ring. I don’t know what stopped him from finishing that piece of shit off but he did and he asked me to save him. He pleaded really, he made me swear not to let the man die and I swore. I wish I hadn’t but seeing Clint like that made it impossible not to. So I made sure he was kept alive, I made sure he has locked away in the worst possible place but that he was kept alive because Clint made me swear. He was basically dead, the only thing keeping him alive were the machine or that’s what we all had thought, but apparently that bastard was still alive somewhere in there.”

Thor could feel the heavy blanket of tension and foul emotions covering the room like a thick fog, it was like the heavy feeling that came before a thunderstorm.

“When we find him,” Thor spoke up his voice dark and rumbling, “I will make no oath not to kill this man. I will strike him down with no hesitation.”

The words were spoken as an undisputable fact, there was not room for persuasion of anything otherwise between each word.

When he looked into the eyes of the others he saw the same fact in those eyes.

“Clint wouldn’t want any of you to murder this man,” Pepper spoke up, “he wouldn’t want that bastards blood on your hands.”

“Pepper,” Natasha started.

“You can’t just kill him,” Pepper went on, “I’m not saying go easy on him but don’t outright kill him. You’re all better than that. The man deserves to die, I agree with that, but if Clint found out-”

“That’s why he won’t know,” Tony interrupted suddenly.

Thor and Phil turned to look at Tony in shock, Tony’s eyes were downcast and but his jaw was clenched in a way that gave away his anger.

“Tony,” Phil said in a soft voice.

“We’re not going to tell him about any of this, right Phil? We are going to keep this from him and keep him safe from this monster. No one will say a thing to him and if someone just so happens to get a little too rough when we find the guy then he just won’t know. No harm done.”

“Right,” Phil agreed.

“But-” Pepper began to protest.

“Pep,” Bucky said gently.

Pepper looked around the room before sighing and lowering her head in defeat, “Fine. If you all think this is for the best then go ahead. It won’t end well but go ahead. I won’t say anything.”

“Thank you, Pepper,” Phil said.

“Now, explain how we’re going to find this bastard,” Pepper pressed.

Phil nodded as he turned his attention to the files, “Right here’s what we know so far.”

Thor soon found out, as did the others, that what they knew so far basically nothing and that was a terrifying thing.

 

>>\----------------->


End file.
